There has been a great deal of backlash in the past few years against many retailers and others replacing the traditional "Merry Christmas" greeting with the more generic, PC "happy holidays", or the even more generic "season's greetings". Personally, I am not immediately offended whenever someone greets me with "happy holidays", but I definitely share in the sentiment that it is symptomatic of a broader trend to try to marginalize the obvious spiritual aspect of the Christmas holiday.
Although, as many correctly point out, Jesus was probably not actually born on December 25, the holiday is of course the traditional celebration of the birth of Christ (ergo the name: "Christ Mass"). Over the centuries, its celebrants have grown to include many who are not believers in Christ, but who have accepted the more general message of "Peace on earth, goodwill toward man" that is associated with the holiday. (Incidentally, the term "holiday" itself means "holy day", so even the "happy holidays" greeting inadvertently recognizes the sacred aspect of the day.) Unfortunately, the current trend is that some non-believers wish to divorce the peace and goodwill sentiments from the sacred, thereby in essence appropriating the holiday for themselves. Even more unfortunately, some seek only to retain the commercial aspects of Christmas and discard all of the other, potentially offensive, "religious" stuff. The sad irony is that either of these approaches robs the day of the very thing that sets it apart from all other days of the year. Eventually, as I think is already evident, the good will, peace, and eventually the profit will go away as well. Christmas is special simply because it is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Without that, it is just another day.
So, how should one handle the "offensive" thing? The most common argument for the PC greetings is that someone who is not a Christian might be offended if wished a "merry Christmas". Personally, I don't see this - I would certainly not take offense at being wished a happy Hanukkah, or what have you. I'd appreciate the sentiment. (I like one comment I heard on the radio: "2000 years later, and Jesus is still intimidating people!") However, I think the following solution is appropriately respectful of people of other faiths while retaining the integrity of ones own reverence for Christmas: Wish someone a "merry Christmas". If they say "I'm Jewish", then say, "Oh, well then happy Hanukkah". If they say "I'm Muslim", then say "then happy Ramadan" (or whatever the appropriate greeting is for that holiday). If they say "I'm an atheist", then just say "happy nothing." Problem solved.
