I truly hate to shop! If I can avoid going into a store, I do! The one true exception is around Christmas! I used to enjoy the black Friday afternoon shopping, or the annual trip to the mall. I loved the way strangers called out Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays to everyone they met (it felt like being in a Christmas Carol – which I love BTW)
This time of year it just used to sound different! To feel different! A few days ago Jenn and I were discussing how it “doesn’t feel like Christmas” and then how that as been the case for a few years now. And like I do, I have been thinking on why…
I think I have decided, December once carried a chorus of greetings – Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah – everywhere you go (yes, I sang that part) it was spoken easily and generously by strangers in checkout lines, servers in restaurants, people passing on the sidewalk. There was warmth in it, a shared acknowledgment that this season was set apart. Special (even as we stress over gifts, too many parties, or too little money).
Now?
We’ve reduced December to the same bland exchanges we use year-round: Have a nice day. Have a good one (which I hate BTW). Safe. Neutral. Empty. Oh so empty!
And that silence didn’t come from secular culture. It came from Christians.
The so-called “War on Christmas” was not a response to oppression; it was a manufactured outrage. As historians and journalists have documented, the phrase emerged in the late 1990s and gained traction in the early 2000s when media figures framed inclusive language – like “Happy Holidays” – as an intentional attack on Christianity. What had long been a normal, widely used greeting (acknowledging Christmas, New Year’s, Hanukkah, and more) was suddenly cast as hostile and threatening.
Fact-checking outlets like Snopes have repeatedly shown there was never an organized effort to ban “Merry Christmas.” No laws. No mandates. No secret meetings. Just cultural diversity and an expanding awareness that not everyone celebrates the same way. But instead of responding with generosity or confidence, many Christians chose fear and grievance. They demanded compliance. They shouted “war.”
And here’s the bitter irony: in insisting that everyone must say “Merry Christmas,” Christians helped create a climate where people now say nothing at all! By insisting that only you and your Christmas holiday matter, you stole the joy, you manufactured what you claimed existed, but didn’t! And you successfully stopped people from sharing the joy of Christmas freely, with abandon, without fear!
Cashiers hesitate, and I don’t blame them. Servers avoid eye contact. Retail workers default to neutral phrases because it’s safer than being accused of offense or ideology. Not because Christmas is forbidden—but because it’s become a minefield.
Congratulations! The outcome of this invented war isn’t fewer “Happy Holidays.” It’s fewer human connections. The season didn’t lose its greeting because it was erased; it lost its greeting because Christians turned it into a test. Christians turned it into a gamble, a potential for someone to be a jerk – loud, entitled, and difficult – as they proclaim their love of the birth of Jesus – sigh!
Y’all, Christmas was never fragile. Christmas was never in danger! Christmas didn’t need defending. What it needed – and still needs IMO – is humility, joy, and the courage to offer goodwill without demands. Just like the angel said in Luke 2 (msg) We are “here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has been born”
Maybe if we stopped fighting imaginary wars, we might find ourselves experiencing more joy, more love for humankind, more feeling like it is Christmas!
Merry Christmas Y’all!
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