Merry Christmas

We spent a few post-Christmas days on the Coromandel Peninsula and stayed in a great apartment while there. It was, as you expect, a place you could live quite happily and forget it was acting like a hotel. They had all the mod-cons such as a dishwasher, washing machine and stove, and supplied the powders etc. for each of these so you could be fully independent of hotel staff, if you chose. All of this served to allow us more freedom to eat in, having all of our breakfasts and two of our dinners comfortably in our room.

Whitianga, where we stayed, is a great little town, too, and developing ever faster. For our first grocery-shop we went to one of the big supermarkets, buying a poddle of oysters to eat at the beach, breakfast cereal, oil for the pan etc. I was relaxed and happy because I'd slipped into holiday mode and ready to take time as it came. After paying at check-out, the cashier wished me "happy holidays" and I wished her back "Merry Christmas" and she looked awkward. And suddenly I thought about the very interesting culture war in the States.

Eight years had been a long time for conservatives over there in the Obama years. For them, it was a constant assault on what they thought was the American way of doing things, including celebrating Christmas. One of the things was the trend for companies and organisations asking service people to stop using "Merry Christmas" and adopt culturally and religiously neutral phrases such as "Happy holidays" and "Seasons greetings". These changes caused backlash. 

The funny thing was that my "Merry Christmas" at the supermarket was reflexive and I certainly support the trend toward saying "Happy holidays" to those the speaker is not familiar with, which is especially the case for those in the service industry. For me, and I believe for most New Zealanders, "Merry Christmas" isn't a religious saying - it's a cultural phrase, even merely a linguistic idiom. It's as religious as Santa and reindeer. 

But many people see it as a religious phrase and religion always brings a degree of discomfort when pressed onto others. It's everyone right to say what they'd like as individuals but it doesn't mean that it won't have consequences, and I wouldn't want to discomfort others for no reason, when it was just the desire to wish someone well or to provide a turn in a social interaction that needed to be filled. 

The strange thing in the culture war is that the fact that it's a wish for another and such a wish shouldn't really be a basis for conflict. There is a distinct problem for the religious who would like to show their sincerity but their idiom is religiously rooted. When a religious person says they'll pray for someone, it is meant as a kindness. To an atheist it may come as a wish, but may often come as something different. We now live in a gloriously pluralistic world - the formally alternative are now accepted in the main. It is an emotional issue for those who are finding that they've floated out of the mainstream and sometimes the cognitive dissonance is awkward. (Check out this amusing interview after 2:00, where the satirical interviewer points out that there is no difference between before and after Trump.)

In my habitual phraseology, I clearly hold onto some unobserved relics of a bygone time. It's still something that I wish to reform my habits about in the new year.