Happy Holidays, Bill O’Reilly

Something interesting happened in New York City this Christmas season: everyone started wishing each other “Happy Holidays”. In fact, I’d venture that “Happy Holidays” is outpacing “Merry Christmas” roughly 10-1.

This is a very recent development. Just last year I’d say that “Happy Holidays” was relatively unusual. You saw it on greeting cards and signs, but people didn’t say it to each other, not even here in Brooklyn, where roughly a quarter of the population is Jewish, and where menorahs are as common as Christmas trees.

Here’s what I think happened: all the brouhaha from Bill O’Reilly and other reactionary wingnuts about “Happy Holidays” actually got people to pay attention to their greetings for the first time; and when they did–Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, or anything else–they knew they didn’t want to be associated with those idiots. If the same mouth breathers that had argued for calling homosexuals “queers” instead of “gays” and blacks “negroes” instead of “African-Americans” were now incensed about saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, then “Happy Holidays” had got to be the thing decent people say to each other.

So Happy Holidays to everyone, Bill O’Reilly included, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, Makar Sankranti, or anything else. Here’s wishing you a wonderful 2006!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 27th, 2005 at 9:18 AM and is filed under New York. You can follow any responses to this entry through the Atom feed. You can make a comment, Digg this story, or trackback from your own site.