Holiday Greetings

[The Portrait of Zool]

(from an email)

 

 

I wanted to send out some sort of holiday greeting to my friends, but

it is so difficult in today's world to know exactly what to say

without offending someone. So I met with my attorney yesterday, and on

his advice I wish to say the following:

 

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes

for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress,

nonaddictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice

holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of religious

persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the

religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their

choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

 

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and

medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally

accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the

calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society

have helped make America great (not to imply that America is

necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "America" in

the western hemisphere) and without regard to the race, creed, color,

age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the

wishee.

 

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely

transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies

no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for

her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is

revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual

application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the

issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and

warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new

wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

 

Disclaimer: no trees were harmed in the sending of this message

however, a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced.

[reverie]

Ya know. Actually, I find that someone having the need to previse their beliefs before wishing someone else well as offensive.

 

I see nothing wrong with wishing someone a Merry Christmas, if you believe in it, and or if you know that the person that you are greeting believes in it. Besides Christmas is pretty commercial now-a-days most americans ppl celebrate it as a folk or secular occurance. I never saw one elf in the bible.

 

Like, if I've some jewish friends. That will be celebrating Hannaku, I might say, Happy Hannaku or however you spell it. Like wise with Soltise or Qwanza, or what have you.

 

Usually, I just say a general Merry Christmas/Happy New Year or enjoy the holidays.

 

The only time, I would be offended, is if you forced someone else to take part in a celebration against their will, like forcing an Orthodox Jewish person or a Jehovah's Witness to take part in the Naitivity Scene or to write an essay of what Christmas means to them.

 

A simple greeting is inkeeping with the ideal of freedom of expression and speech.

 

The current diabocal over the supposed war on christmas in the U.S.A. is simple a smoke screen set to further split my already divided nation. If anything people in general which derive from all faiths, creeds, levels of affluence, or lack there of... are fighting a war against fundamentalism, not the freedom of religion.

 

And the rise of widespread fundamentalism worldwide, like the Nationalism of early twentienth centuary, is the grease propelling the war and hate machines of our century.

 

God help us all and Merry Christmas.

 

rev...

Edited December 23, 2005 by reverie

[The Portrait of Zool]

Isn't it odd how 'elimination of offense' quickly sucks the life out of any interaction?

[Gwaihir]

So I've been working on a theory for this topic. Someone tell me if it makes sense.

When I'm going to bed and talking to someone from say Australia I say goodnight even though it's not night for them. Europeans tend to do the same to me.

So clearly if I am wanting to wish holiday greetings to a Jew, I should still say Merry Christmas and he say Happy Hanukah or whatever.

Reasonable?

[The Big Pointy One]

This topic is kind of funny, because it actually came up at work. I work in a callcenter, and we take calls from all over the place, mostly the US even though I am in Canada. (I still take calls from Canadian people for lots of local things too) Anyways, someone was telling me how that they told someone 'happy holidays' and that person mentioned there was this big spiel going on where certain religious folk were upset because they were taking Christmas for granted. I don't necessarily disagree; I think if no one else, corporations are taking the spirit out of Christmas. However, I think to be fair, these religious folk (aside, I do not look down on 'religious folk', I am happy for everyone who believes in something, but I am not very religious myself.) should understand that lots of non-religious folk also celebrate the commercial christmas, and also there are folks with other religious followings, as implied above. I like the saying happy holidays, because that covers a lot of things. Even if you're not religious, I bet you probably have some form of holiday around the Christmas/New Years time.

 

Anyways, rambling aside, I don't think this should even be an issue. Kind of like what Gwai side, you'd figure when someone says 'Merry Christmas' to someone, they'd understand that it is simply a friendly phrase.

 

That being said, Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!

 

 

[reverie]

Isn't it odd how 'elimination of offense' quickly sucks the life out of any interaction?

 

Well it's a comfort level thing Zool. Like what your comfortable talking about with your friends is probably very different from what you talk about with your boss or a casual associate...

 

Once you've established a rapport with another person, it's much harder to offend them, because they generally know you well enough to know if you're really joking, being serious, sarcastic etc.

[The Portrait of Zool]

Truly, anything can be considered 'offensive' by anyone else. This is not to say I subscribe to relativism; manipulating, harming, or unjustifiably hurting another is wrong no matter who you are.

 

The line between ethics and offensiveness can be a shadowy and slippery animal, but I think you were close Rev in your observation about comfort levels - but why project our comfort levels over what others should do, say, or even find joyous?

 

It is, unfortunately a common thing these days to take one's own duties lightly, yet make heavy demands of the world - that it should conform to our own way of thinking, for example. This, to me, is a complete inversion of responsibility.

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In fact, any metaphysical value is in the eye of the perceiver, an incontrovertable consequence of us being our individual selves. And there, to me, is the key to the whole issue. Some things I have control of and most things I don't, so let me act accordingly and take my own duties and responsibilities heavily, and the world very lightly, for then, and only then, can we truly all be joyous together, in openness and acceptance.

[Zadown]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In fact, any metaphysical value is in the eye of the perceiver, an incontrovertable consequence of us being our individual selves. And there, to me, is the key to the whole issue. Some things I have control of and most things I don't, so let me act accordingly and take my own duties and responsibilities heavily, and the world very lightly, for then, and only then, can we truly all be joyous together, in openness and acceptance.

Now there's something I can completely agree with and sign, even if actually living by it is sometimes hard for us imperfect creatures. Live and let live!