The Christian Case for <em>Happy Holidays</em>

Toward the end of his second campaign for president, Donald Trump promised a weary nation one thing: “Merry Christmas” is coming back. “We’re going to have ‘Merry Christmas,’ just like we got for everybody seven years ago, [when] we brought it back,” Trump declared in a Facebook video. “It was in deep trouble, [but] we brought it back.”

“Merry Christmas” was never in real danger, of course, but the complaint comes from conservative Christians who bemoan the diminishment of public Christian sentiment. This contingent is most displeased with the loss of explicit Christian dominance in culture—the fact that, for example, department stores and restaurants have, in recent decades, replaced Christmas decorations with nonspecific holiday decorations, or changed special Christmas menus to special holiday menus. (Despite his crusade for Christmas, Trump’s own stores, buildings, and restaurants do not generally refer to Christmas.) In the logic of this grievance, “Merry Christmas” is pitted against “Happy holidays” in a competition for the nation’s character.

But the dichotomy is misbegotten, and there are plenty of reasons even devoutly conservative Christians should consider wishing others “Happy holidays” this season. This isn’t to say that using “Merry Christmas” is a bad thing to do—it isn’t, especially when speaking with coreligionists or on Christmas Day itself. And though I doubt that most people are so sensitive as to take offense at a well-intended salutation, “Happy holidays” still has a great deal to recommend it.

To begin with, there are, in fact, other holidays at the end of the year—not just of other faiths but also within Christianity. The word holiday ought not be confined in meaning to bank holidays—why should financial institutions or governments dictate what constitutes a true holiday?—but rather to the original sense of holy days. Christmas is certainly an important holy day, but so are the days of Advent, the prayerful, anticipatory weeks leading up to the grand finale. And so, too, is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception—a major event in the Catholic calendar and a “holy day of obligation,” meaning that Catholics must report to Mass to observe it. (In Nicaragua, Spain, the Philippines, and many other countries, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is a national holiday, in the secular sense.) For that reason, “Happy holidays,” being plural and inclusive, captures a genuinely pious—Christian—sentiment.

[Read: Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays, round 2,016]

These holidays are, admittedly, quite High Church. But there are other, more ecumenical Christian reasons for keeping “Happy holidays” on hand. Take Hanukkah, which this year begins on Christmas Day: The celebration of God’s miracle of lights originates in the Books of the Maccabees, which are considered canonical by the majority of Christians, and Jesus himself celebrates the occasion in the Book of John. This is perhaps why certain Christians do observe the festival, and why Orthodox Christians use menorahs in their churches. Again, considering the multiplicity of conservative Christian-friendly holidays at the end of the year, Christians have no reason to eschew more inclusive tidings.

More important is the fact that a friendly greeting is a kind of charity—a most Christian virtue. Such a greeting constitutes an offer of hope for another’s happiness, which means it is done primarily for the benefit of the other person, not for the speaker themselves. In that case, the well wishes should be addressed in the broadest possible terms—if you don’t know what someone might celebrate but intend to greet them warmly, it doesn’t make sense to pinpoint one specific tradition as the means of your connection. To wish someone well only in the sense that matters to you without regard for what matters to them is to defeat the purpose of wishing someone well in the first place.

But perhaps the militant wing of “Merry Christmas” wishers derives a little pleasure in intentionally slighting members of other religions, or people who might not celebrate anything specific at all. It’s a small act of illiberalism—not so much an opportunity for connection with others as a chance to make a point about which religion ought to dominate American life. The “Merry Christmas” anger intimates a certain discontent with a pluralistic America. I certainly have concerns about the liberal tradition, but one thing liberalism does well is helping cool tensions among hostile religious sects (indeed, this is part of the typical origin story of liberalism). The result of this effect is something we should prize: peace among people of widely varied beliefs with conflicting truth claims. Maintaining that accord requires tolerance and generosity, which aren’t always easy virtues. But it’s worth a number of small concessions to sleep in heavenly peace.