M
Melissa
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While pregnant w/ my middle son, I worked part-time in a maternity store, and our manager was Jewish and we’d been very firmly instructed to wish people ‘Happy Holidays’ rather than ‘Merry Christmas’. Until one day when I had a 50ish lady come in to buy something for her daughter, and while I was helping her I noted that she was wearing a necklace w/ a crucifix, so after I’d finished ringing up her purchase, I wished her “Merry Christmas”.I don’t mind Xmas if it is written by somebody who is jotting notes quickly or in a space without a lot of room, but otherwise I think it is disprespectful. I also don’t like all the “Happy Holidays” stuff. Who are we fooling? The reason for the big “to do” is Christmas, and not some other holiday. If I know somebody is Jewish or Muslim, then I wouldn’t say “Merry Christmas.” I do know that my Jewish friends are not offended by people who say that to them when they don’t know if they are Jewish. Why would they be?
One of my co-workers started to get on my case, but I explained to her that based on my observations while working w/ the customer, I knew that she would be celebrating Christmas and well might have been offended by the generic–and that if I’d had a customer of similar age who’d given me equal reason to believe she was Jewish, I’d have wished that customer a “Happy Hannukah” (however that’s spelled–I’ve seen it with a ‘ch’ at the beginning, but it was spelled the way I spelled it when I read the All of a Kind Family book series). My manager agreed that if we knew for sure which winter holiday someone celebrated, it’d be better to go w/ the specific one, rather than the generic ‘cover all bases and please nobody’ variant.