Happy Holidays!

In honor of that great Christmas tradition of complaining about chain store greetings I offer these thoughts from an old news letter article I wrote.


Happy Holidays!

I never knew that such a friendly greeting could be so controversial. I do understand some of the frustration. After all, if someone doesn’t want to celebrate Christmas then they should not worry about it and just get back to work. We are tempted to say celebrate or don’t celebrate, but don’t try to change what Christmas means.

But after further review, it wouldn’t really be such a terrible thing if the chaos of Target, Wal-mart and the mall were separated from this Sacred Season. Maybe these marketers have done for us what we should have done for ourselves long ago.

Instead of taking offense at these Merry Christmas alternatives, I would encourage you to notice that even these alternatives contain unmistakable Christian messages.

Take “happy holidays” for instance. What is really being said here is a recognition that these are Holy Days.

I could not agree more. At Christmas we celebrate that before the beginning of time God selected a specific day for His Son to enter this world, to be born of the virgin Mary. He planned the persons, the time and the place for this great event. To say the least it was a day long circled on heaven’s calendar.

And do not forget that God knows just as much about this day (today) as He did of the day Jesus was born. He knows the persons, the time and the place you are surrounded by right now. And He certainly has a plan for today!

Yes, these certainly are happy holy-days indeed! I hope someone reminds you of that today.