Over 90% of the population in the United States, or nine in ten Americans, say they celebrate Christmas. Lately, however, it seems America has forgotten its roots and turned to a more hollow and empty look of things. The not so recent use of the term “Happy Holidays” has been a controversy for a long time. Amazingly, however, when someone wishes a person “Happy Holidays”, they seem to ignore and dismiss the fact that they aren’t wishing them anything!

In the hopes of becoming more “politically correct” and catering to as many people as possible, many companies and government agencies have changed their greetings from “Merry Christmas” to “Happy Holidays.” Christmas parties have become “Holiday parties” and Christmas break has become “Holiday or Winter break.” Advocates of this behavior believe this is no big deal and if you bring this up you are “making a mountain out of a molehill.” So is this really that big of a deal?

Of course it is, considering how much effort companies and legal organizations use to substitute the use of these other, washed down, words. This has become extraordinarily successful, baring in mind that every place I go to, stores, restaurants, and even schools, wish their customers “Happy Holidays” to not offend anybody. God forbid we should mention a national holiday which has been in place for hundreds of years that nine in ten Americans celebrate.

If this keeps up, activists might even go to the extreme and try to remove Christmas as a national holiday. That may sound ridiculous, however, the reason that Christmas bothers so many of the “holiday” supporters is that Christmas is a blatant reminder of how religious America is, and has been. To everyone’s surprise, that is not a bad thing!. The fact that people are free to worship or not worship who they please is extraordinary! However, trying to remove a religious holiday that over 90% of Americans follow is ridiculous. Even if you are not religiously affiliated with Christmas, you still live in America where it is a declared a National Holiday. Christmas does not have to be your holy day, however it is your national holiday as much as it is for your fellow Americans that are Christian, Jewish, or anything else.

People seem to forget that it was a Jewish American, Irving Berlin, who wrote one of the most famous Christmas songs of all time: “White Christmas.” In fact, almost all of the most famous Christmas songs were written by people of the Jewish faith! These people did not feel excluded from American culture just because they celebrated another day of worship, other than the national holiday. They, in fact, felt quite included.

Just because some people do not celebrate Christmas, why would you want to drop the word “Christmas” when over 90% of Americans celebrate it? You are not excluding anyone by wishing people “Merry Christmas.” Saying “Happy Holidays”, however, is excluding almost all Americans from one of their nation’s biggest national holiday. Next time, just say “Merry Christmas”!