Political Correctness

[Clueless Morgan]

PC debates always arise this time of year, because people get "offended" by words like "Christmas" or manger scenes in yards.  It's a little ironic because PC is meant to be speech to make all feel inclusive, but in reality it's rephrasing to exclude that which people find offensive and in turn offending others.  It's a not a "holiday" tree lighting ceremony.  it's a Christmas tree lighting ceremony.  It's not a holiday menora, it's a Hanukkah Menora.  Call it what it is.

When people start having hissy fits over this stuff, I go out of my way to call them "holiday" trees and - though I've never in my life heard of it before right now - a "holiday" menorah just to piss them off.

My coworker went on a rant about a month ago saying that now that our lone Jewish employee no longer worked at our office that she wasn't going to call our winter office party a "holiday" party anymore, she was going to call it a Christmas party, damn it!!  And though I don't really care what it's called (calling things "Christmas" trees or "Christmas" presents don't irk me at all) I added her discussion item to the office meeting agenda as "Holiday" party simply because her ranting about it annoyed me.

Calling it a Holiday Tree or a Christmas Tree or Pagan Tree or a Shmoogleoffenmieser Tree is simply a stupid argument to have to me - it's a nice, seasonal decoration/decorative motif, who really gives two craps what it's called? Is it really that important? And getting bent out of shapes because someone wished you "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" is, to me, juvenile and culturally self-centered.  IMO, saying "Happy holidays" encompasses Thanksgiving, one's seasonal holiday of choice, and New Years so when I say it I'm not merely wishing someone a nice single day, I'm wishing them a nice winter season with whomever they celebrate their holidays with.  And when someone says it to me, I assume they mean roughly the same thing; and besides, they don't know what holiday I celebrate, be is Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, solstice, Festivus, or whatever.