![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Happy EVERYTHING!
Monday, 10 December 2018 10:26In the great kerfluffle over "Merry Xmas" vs "Happy Holidays" I may have discovered an improved detente:
See, the whole purpose of "Happy Holidays" is to be more inclusive, but somehow the "MC" people seem to feel excluded. The word "Holidays" in their mind somehow erases Xmas. It's counter intuitive, it's likely unrational but there it is. Maybe it feels like a diminution somehow and I can see how that can be alienating.
So this weekend, as I was busking, a good couple of handfuls of tippers said "Merry Christmas" as they did and I wasn't going to start some fight over this. They were tipping me after all and my living depends on encouraging that. Some of those tips were pretty large. But I still want to raise some awareness of and encouragement of inclusivity and do my small Bardic bit to help make inclusivity part of the celebration(s). I tried an experiment:
I responded: "Happy EVERYTHING!"
Damn if it didn't work! Every time. Everyone I've said this to gets a big grin on their face. Somehow putting it that way got the message across that Joy is Universal and that *their* modus for it is valid. I suppose it helps that the delivery doesn't come across as a correction (and let's face it, HH has acquired that baggage). At any rate, by my calculation, saying "Happy EVERYTHING!" turns out to be (somehow?) a more inclusive connotation and free of any hint of diminution of any Holidaic value for whatever someone celebrates. It makes all of the celebrations worthy and it just sounds more FUN. It seems to imply a true *sharing* of Joy, which in a "season of giving" seems supremely appropriate.
So, try it!
See, the whole purpose of "Happy Holidays" is to be more inclusive, but somehow the "MC" people seem to feel excluded. The word "Holidays" in their mind somehow erases Xmas. It's counter intuitive, it's likely unrational but there it is. Maybe it feels like a diminution somehow and I can see how that can be alienating.
So this weekend, as I was busking, a good couple of handfuls of tippers said "Merry Christmas" as they did and I wasn't going to start some fight over this. They were tipping me after all and my living depends on encouraging that. Some of those tips were pretty large. But I still want to raise some awareness of and encouragement of inclusivity and do my small Bardic bit to help make inclusivity part of the celebration(s). I tried an experiment:
I responded: "Happy EVERYTHING!"
Damn if it didn't work! Every time. Everyone I've said this to gets a big grin on their face. Somehow putting it that way got the message across that Joy is Universal and that *their* modus for it is valid. I suppose it helps that the delivery doesn't come across as a correction (and let's face it, HH has acquired that baggage). At any rate, by my calculation, saying "Happy EVERYTHING!" turns out to be (somehow?) a more inclusive connotation and free of any hint of diminution of any Holidaic value for whatever someone celebrates. It makes all of the celebrations worthy and it just sounds more FUN. It seems to imply a true *sharing* of Joy, which in a "season of giving" seems supremely appropriate.
So, try it!
