Print this

Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas?

Dante Chinni

Posted: 12.22.2008 / 10:23 AM PST

It’s the holiday season, so time for greeting cards, family gatherings – and the annual debate over the proper thing to say to each other when we pass on the street or go through the store checkout. Is it Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas or something else?

The so-called Christmas wars have been quieter this year: After all, it may be harder to debate what to say at the store when the bigger question is what one can afford to buy.

Yet the fight goes on. On Fox News, which tends to focus on the issue, host Bill O’Reilly has been talking a lot about the battle and last week called out people who thought he was overplaying the issue.

Still, there are signs that the Christmas wars have grown cold. A recent survey from Rasmussen Reports finds that while 69 percent of people say “Merry Christmas,” 71 percent say they take no offense from those who say “Happy Holidays.”

So is a yuletide détente is upon us? An informal survey of our 11 Patchwork Nation communities suggests that, as with many cultural issues, it may depend on where you live.

Where Christmas reigns

In Hopkinsville, Ky., our “Military Bastion” located near Fort Campbell, most seem to think “the holidays” are primarily about Dec. 25.

“We tend to say ‘Merry Christmas,’ ” Gay Nell Rittenberry, who owns a Coldwell Banker realty office in Hopkinsville, writes in an e-mail. “Until a few years ago, I think we said both, but now we are conscious enough that we make sure we say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays. After all, this season is a religious one.”

John Banks, who is president of the local NAACP office and pastor of the Foston Chapel Baptist Church, e-mails that he hasn’t kept tabs but always says Merry Christmas himself. “I will correct someone that comes to me differently,” he notes.

In Sioux Center, Iowa, our rural and agricultural “Tractor Country” community, “Merry Christmas” is the preferred greeting, says Steve Hoogland, editor of the Sioux Center News, in an e-mail.

“Here in Sioux Center, most people say Merry Christmas without any fear of backlash,” he writes. “I don’t have any statistics to back things up, but even at places like City Hall and at Wal-Mart, it’s common to hear people saying ‘Merry Christmas.’ ”

Then again, people in those two communities may not have much reason to say anything but “Merry Christmas.” Religious diversity in both Sioux Center and Hopkinsville basically consists of which Christian denomination residents call their spiritual home. There are virtually no Jewish or Muslin populations.

This also holds true for the community types that Hopkinsville and Sioux Center represent. On the whole, neither “Tractor County” nor “Military Bastions” have even one Jewish or Muslim adherent per 1,000 residents.

You say tomato, I say Season’s Greetings

In other communities, the reaction to the holiday-greeting fight is more subdued.

In Eagle, Colo., our growing and diversifying “Boom Town,” most residents see the Christmas wars as a battle fought in a far-off land.

“In Eagle, I really don’t think that anyone is so politically correct that offense would be taken at either greeting,” resident Katha Hartley writes in an e-mail. “There’s no contention from our point of view.”

There simply are no issues around the Christmas wars, agrees Jon Stavney, an incoming Eagle County commissioner and a former mayor of Eagle. A few strong Roman Catholics note that they emphasize “Merry Christmas” when they wish people well.

In Los Alamos, N.M., our wealthy, well-educated “Monied ’Burb,” some people seem almost unable to process the idea of Christmas wars.

“I’ve never had anyone here in Los Alamos, or anywhere else for that matter, jump me for saying Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or even Happy Hanukkah for that matter – even people who I strongly suspect aren’t Christian or Jewish or even festive,” Los Alamos blogger James Rickman says in an e-mail. “It’s never been an issue.”

The area’s diversity makes it more accepting of a variety of religious traditions, says Bill Enloe, chairman and CEO of Los Alamos National Bank.

“This time of the year is a time of celebration both culturally and religiously. New Mexicans take great pride in our diversity and generally look at the ‘Christmas Wars’ as something that is not in that spirit,” he writes in an e-mail. “Not many people here are offended by or take offense to how we express our beliefs – be it Happy Hanukkah, Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas, or whatever. As long as it’s sincere and respectful. Wars and Christmas don’t belong in the same sentence.”

The negative reactions to the “Merry Christmas” fight in these communities may have something to do with the religious makeup of these places. Both Eagle and Los Alamos Counties have a far greater percentage of Jewish residents than the average county. Nationally, “Boom Town” and “Monied ’Burb” counties have more Jewish and Muslim adherents than average.

Christmas conclusions

Ultimately, this is a small snapshot. But it seems that keeping “Christmas” a part of the holiday season is a bigger part of communities where Christians tend to dominate – and where Christmas already dominates.

That’s probably not surprising, but it may reveal a larger point. In a country as big and diverse as the United States, the fight that is the Christmas wars may make the biggest splash in the places where there really isn’t much of a war over the term at all.

Whatever the national media say, communities tend to keep Christmas and the overall holiday season in their own ways.

• Patchwork Nation will be taking the rest of this week off to celebrate the holidays. See you all Dec. 29 and Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays.