MERRY CHRISTMAS OR HAPPY HOLIDAYS
or "Winterval" all involve the celebrations for the most cherished Christian festival – Christmas – which Dr. Paul Craig Roberts describes as flowing “from the teaching that God so values the individual's soul that he sent his son to die so we might live,” and rued that in the present trend of modernization and supposed secularization it is becoming “more difficult to find a Christmas card that says "Merry Christmas" instead of "Seasons Greetings", though “Americans have a huge stake in Christianity.” But Stephen Lendman preferred to extend greetings for the "Happy Holiday season" though he also noted Christmas celebrations. Wikpedia informs us that the “…name "Winterval" was originally coined in 1986 in Cardiff, by Mike Johnson (Bayfolk) to describe the concept of a "Winter Festival" which filled that socially blank "Interval" following the Christmas and New Year Festivities and offered a platform to local artistes and performers, thus re-booting the spirits and kickstarting the new year,” that it was a "portmanteau of winter and festival", explained by Birmingham City Council's Head of Events (so celebrated only for two years or so), Mike Chubb – “…we needed a vehicle which could cover the marketing of a whole season of events... Diwali (the Festival of Lights), Christmas Lights switch-on, …… Chinese New Year, New Year's Eve, etc. Also, a season that included theatre shows … the Frankfurt Open-air Christmas Market and the Christmas seasonal retail offer. Christmas … and its celebration lay at the heart of Winterval. Political correctness was never the reasoning behind Winterval, but yes, it was intended to be inclusive – ... no bad thing to my mind – and a brand to which other initiatives could be developed as part of the Winterval offer…” However, conservatives everywhere decry this "secularization" and "non-saying of" "Merry Christmas" as a concerted effort of the "political correctness" protagonists and that gradual de-Christianization of the Western societies is central to their theme and activities. Trump made much [profit] of this hullabaloo, and reintroduced the "Merry Christmas" greetings from the White House – which the current incumbent, his Dem rival, Biden too seems to continue to an extent. "Happy Holidays" is another greeting for the season, generally used by the liberal left and democrats in the US, and is castigated as a "liberal aggression against traditional values" by the conservatives. Whatever be the melee in the West, we opine that the terms/greetings “Happy Holidays” or “Winterval” form a larger set with “Merry Christmas” as its major subset, and have no compunction in extending hearty “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Diwali”, “Id Mubarak” and “Happy New Year!” greetings to all people in this “Happy Holidays” season. §§§
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