Why we call it "The Holiday Season"

I think it's nothing more than a polite gesture to make ALL people feel "connected" to the one time of year that's come to represent warm friendly feelings...regardless of your religion.

Young people don't have a point of reference, but there WAS a time when religion did not have the controversy attached to it that it does today,

People lived their entire lives around neighbors whose religion they didn't even know...unless they saw them going into or coming out of a neighborhood church. They barbequed with these neighbors, had halloween parties together.. their kids slept over at each others' houses..The children attended the same schools, made their paper valentines, wore halloween costumes to school and even had parties and parades.. they planted trees on Arbor day, they laid wreaths on graves on Memorial Day.

When Thanksgiving loomed, the kids learned about pilgrims and parents shopped for yummy foods. Thanksgiving day was about family, food & football..

Most women did not care much for sports, so the "day-after" sales were geared to them, so they would have something "fun" to do while the men laid around and nibbled on leftovers & watched football. The post-Thanksgiving sales were a way to launch the shopping season for Christmas, and get people excited about the gift-giving (TV made sure KIDS got excited about it)

Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years ....Those are the "holidays" in "Happy Holiday".. I think they are/were just a marketing tool and an excuse for some lighthearted times at school and home..

I have known Jewish people my whole life and never once did any of them "get offended" when schools & towns regularly displayed nativity scenes. In fact most places actually displayed a menorah alongside the other displays....They were displayed as a symbol for the season...not an "in-your-face" affront. Santa was right up there too , as was Frosty the Snowman. Holiday season was just that..a month-long "celebration/recognition" of a fun time of year.

The people who rail against "pc" behavior, and complain that civilization is trying to take jesus out of the season, are just trying to stir up trouble and create division where there used to be none.

Jewish people used to just tell their kids that they celebrated Hanukkah and Christian people celebrated Christmas..

Savvy marketers realized that the Holiday season was a clever way to market for THREE holidays with one marketing campaign, and to include all faiths .. Most people said Merry Christmas because for a long time MOST people were Christians of one variety or other. If you said happy Holidays, it was a generic salutation to a group (that might contain people whose affiliation you did not know), and for businesses, the Holiday appellation made sense, since they could not possible know who would read their ads. No one set out to intentionally offend anyone..

That is a "new" thing.. .. The divisive nature of people today is what is "killing" Christmas.

And Kwanzaa I guess.

Like, whatever your December holiday was, happy holiday.

:shrug:

:)

He is an Indian actor named Shah Rukh (or Shahrukh) Khan.

He's actually the biggest movie star in the world, in terms of recognition--America (and most of the west I guess) is missing out.
I'm starting to force everyone who comes to my house to watch one of his movies, LOL! I now proselytize for SRK!

He's smart, he dances, and his acting's not too bad either.

Alas, he's married with two kids. :cry:

I've heard of it before, don't remember where...so thanks for passing it on.

:toast:

I know who the major Bollywood actors are from the flyers and from Desi friends but I've never gone to any of the showings. Bollywood movies are big around the world I've been told because of how clean they are.

For women who like romantic comedies/dramas, it's a dream come true. American romcoms seem like a joke to me after watching Hindi films. A bad joke. :shrug:

They remind me very much of the musicals from the golden era of Hollywood. Very fun, with a magical quality almost to them.

But they are three hours, some people are funny about subtitles, and the music takes some getting used to especially the female vocalists...

Anyway, catch one if you can. Especially if it has my sweet baby in it. He is the best there is.

Christmas eve to New Years Day, but when I was young no one thought about other religions. It was all Christian. Christians getting drunk, was the party of the day.

As time passed, others were added, but from an "American/Mom's Apple Pie" perspective, it was the "Big 3".. Lately, they all blur together, Back to school stuff is right next to hallowween and the Halloween candy is barely sold, before the Thanksgiving decorations go up..

but I figured the holidays were inclusive of everything else, including New Years.

Ramadan is based on a Lunar calender so the month moves every year. The beginning of Ramadan this year was around Oct. 4 or 5th and ended Oct 3rd or 4th ( The differences is due to most Muslims following the citing locally but some others follow Saudi Arabia or their homelands start date. Next year it will possibly start around Sept 23rd and end on Oct 22nd. The Ramadan ends with a Holiday to celebrate called Eid ul Fitr. We have another Holiday called Eid ul Adha that will fall on Jan 20th or 21st in 2005. In the next 4 years Eid ul Adha will be about 10 to 11 days in movement and will fall between Thanksgiving and New Years. Eid ul Ahda falls 2 months after the month of Ramadan.

and so moves 10-11 days annually relative to our solar Gregorian calendar.
Hannukah stays the same because of occasional 13th months injected into a Hebrew year.

Duh. Why isn't "holy" enough for the religionists?

When you wish someone a happy holiday, it is NOT a secular expression BUT SOME PEOPLE ARE TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND THAT!

They're federal holidays. Pray tell, what religion are they part of, and how dare our federal government establish religious holidays? Well, apart from Thanksgiving, which nobody seems to seriously object these days.

Then there's New Year's, hardly a religious celebration of any current note. But nonetheless, something that one can say 'Happy Holiday' with respect to. Silly me ... apparently I'm too stupid to use it *only* with sun-worshipers. And it simply can't be used with Kwanzaa.

"Holiday" stopped being necessarily religious a long time ago. "Bank holidays" go back (at least) to the 19th century. And one can easily 'go on holiday'. The word can refer to religious days, but it doesn't imply 'religious', any more than 'pray' in "pray tell" was obligatorily religious when the expression was common.

I hardly ever trash the fundies and call them stupid. And you went and spoiled it!

It IS the second definition in dictionary.com.

1. A day free from work that one may spend at leisure, especially a day on which custom or the law dictates a halting of general business activity to commemorate or celebrate a particular event.
2. A religious feast day; a holy day.
3. Chiefly British. A vacation. Often used in the phrase on holiday.


Oh...I'm a teacher and I don't get Christmas off as a holiday. I don't have to go to work, but I don't get paid for it. So at least our school district isn't establishing religious holidays.

After all, it doesn't say who or what you're thanking, just that it is a time to reflect on all that you are thankful for. I find that a rather nice thing.

Few people remember that Thanksgiving, though purportedly a remembrance of the first Thanksgiving of the Pilgrims, was named a national holiday and the date set as the third Thursday in November by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Prior to that, it was not regularly observed by anyone.

And the refusal to declare a day of Thanksgiving was the very cause for Jefferson to commit the 'wall of separation of church and state' line to paper: he said he was prohibited from declaring one, because Congress could not authorize him to do so. (Certainly a vision different from the "imperial presidency" we heard about a decade or two back!)

But you're right: in most circles--including mine, these days--Thanksgiving is a religious as, oh, Cinco de Mayo?

And Christmas = Christ Mass. We should be charitable to all, esp. in this season. Christ said whatever you do to the poor, you do to me. Try to help someone this season - the poor if you can. If all religions and peoples made this the focus rather than bickering -the world would be a better place.

And Merry Christmas AND Happy Holidays to you and yours. :)

In the name of tolerance, inclusion, and politeness, we can run the risk of including minority religions at the expense of the majority of Americans, who happen to belong to one denomination or another of Christianity. When we replace only Christmas with the generic "holiday" while still calling Hanukkah or Kwanzaa by name, we have crossed the line from tolerance to disrespect for the majority. When lawyers sue to have Nativity scenes taken down on public property while allowing menorahs to remain standing in that very same place, you don't have to be a conservative extremist to think only the Christians are being targeted. I say we should not interfere with religious expression at all unless such expression amounts to aggressive proselytizing.

We're not officially a Christian nation--thank God for that--but we are a country composed of a majority that is Christian.

and not allow the minority religion to be over-run by the majority religion.

I mean, why do you think the Pilgrims came to these shores anyway--they were the minority and wanted to practice religion in their way.

Like Quakers who were branded and driven from the town.

to one and all

Bravo.

if the "season to be jolly" were truly a season of warmth, caring, and fun for all?

Even before the "christmas wars," the season has become one of stress and over-consumption; making sure you have something to give whether you can afford it or not, whether the recipient actually wants it or will "regift" it, fights over which branch of which family gets to host, and who will go to which branch, more stress, more to do.....

It doesn't have to be that way, of course. I'm going to send a few non-denominational holiday cards, get gifts for a select few, and do my best to keep a smile on my face. I'll probably have a small tree; not much in the way of decorations. Lots of music; some traditional, much not. As little stress and $$$ as possible, as much warmth and good will to all as I can muster.

it's more like "no-key".. I'm not into shopping and commercialization, so for us it's just time off to rest or be lazy..
I quit sending cards years ago..Give cash or gift cards as gifts (except for my best friend)..

Sometimes i don't even make a lah-di-dah meal..Like this year..we had Thanksgiving on Friday..with a "HoneyBaked Ham" and the rest of the fixin's prepared at the last minute.. I "started' the meal at 3PM, and we ate at 6:) My kind of Holiday meal:)

My husband's favorite part of Thanksgiving? The pot of ham n beans a few days later :)

Some say thanksgiving was about pilgrims (sounds like the name of a disease) and Natives feasting together.

Others say thanksgiving was a ritual done after the slaughter of Natives.

Maybe pilgrims were good to Natives once but as "no good deed goes unpunished" they were killed off when they were of no further use...

Dunno. And as history is always written by the victor to his advantage, I take ANYTHING with a grain of salt.

It's no wonder kids get confused.. When I think back to what I was taught, versus what I learned by myself, it's midnboggling. The best teacher i had , told me that most of what I needed to know would be stuff I sought out on my own, He was right