Merry Christmas?

"Have a merry merry Christmas, and a happy new year..." the song streamed through the car speakers as our family drove to church this morning. At this point in the song, my precocious 8 year old daughter blurted out, "Really--do they have to say Merry Christmas? Not everyone celebrates Christmas, you know. He should just be singing, 'happy holidays'" I was quite taken aback by this comment from our daughter who had pretty much celebrated Christmas since she was a mere fetus. How does this 8 year old have the cultural and religious sensitivity to say something like that? Maybe I'm giving her way too much credit; she might have very well picked up such rhetoric from school or something. So, how do you respond to that? I just wanted to say, "Love, but we celebrate Christmas, so there. It's OKAY to say Merry Christmas! It's more than okay to say it! Shout it out from the mountain tops! Bellow it out from the depth of your guts! MERRY CHRISTMAS!" The truth of the matter is, I'm sick of constantly having to care about whether my beliefs, my looks, my voice, my intonation, my clothes, my jokes might be politically and/or culturally incorrect and might offend those who are different from me. Just for once, can I just say, "this is who I am, and I'm proud of it?" If you happen to differ from me, "that is who you are, and I'm glad for it!" Of course I can say that. Celebrating our differences is a truly beautiful thing! Being sensitive to someone else's culture or religion isn't the same thing as apologizing for mine; rather, it's a gesture of mutual respect when we can clearly state where we are coming from and welcome the other to do the same with much warmth and grace. To reduce our distinct cultural and religious holy days to just holidays in the spirit of communal acceptance and sensitivity is to deny the beauty of celebrating and upholding our differences. It's going back to the melting pot days where we are all melted into indistinguishable gooey mush of nothingness. I will wish you a Merry Christmas and you can wish me a Happy Hanukkah or Happy Kwanza! Why not celebrate each others' distinct authenticity and culture instead of just wishing each other non-distinct, meaningless "happy holidays?" This is what I think and doggone it, I'm proud of it!