OK, this drives me absolutely fracking nuts!
Merry Christmas has never been taken away. Some stores, in a considerate attempt to include customers who don't celebrate Christmas, decided to say Happy Holidays, and some people took this as a huge personal affront, as if it's not Christmas unless you get to push it in everyone's face (my MIL and her church are among those people)!
Ho Ho Ho is not taken away either - one firm - just one - has given their Santas a suggestion to maybe try a different phrase - not orders, not do this or you're fired, just an alternative. Yeesh!
And this drives me nuts because this kind of garbage is used to get people up in arms against a fake "war" against christmas that is then used to pit Christians against everyone else, to tar anyone who is of a different religion, or even Christians who are tolerant of others.
Christmas is not threatened in any way - it's huge, it's everywhere, and that's not a problem. Stores and businesses do what they like - which is whatever they find profitable, the government celebrates, but needs to keep it from being an endorsement of one religion (to me, Christmas is a secular holiday (trees, santa) as well as a religious one (nativity scene, church) - gov't just needs to stick to the secular side), and individuals do as they like.
Sorry for the rant - and I do celebrate Christmas, and I do expect my Santas to say Ho Ho Ho - but this overblown reporting of one firm giving their Santa's a choice, no doubt out of some manager there overthinking their job - I know where it ends - I talk about religion, and people say they'd be OK with atheists/whatevers, but they're so intolerant, they keep trying to kill Christmas - Santa's can't say Ho Ho Ho anymore, stores can't say Merry Christmas - these articles get into the ether, and people remember the impression, without remembering the actual facts of the story, the bad impression, the hurt feelings are remembered, detached from the facts that prove to be false or blown out of proportion.
