BarTalk December 2004
Volume 16, Number 6

Happy Whatever

By Tony Wilson

I have a small problem with Christmas cards. You know, the ones offices like mine send out every year to offices like yours. Not surprisingly, they’re more or less the same as the ones offices like yours send each year to me. But even though you call them “Christmas cards” and I call them “Christmas cards,” for some reason, the cards rarely say “Merry Christmas,” do they? They say “Seasons Greetings,” which means absolutely nothing to anyone so it means absolutely nothing offensive to anyone either (Which season? Which greeting?). It’s used because of our collective desire to be inclusive, non-confrontational, and non-offensive to people who might feel offended, confronted or not included by receiving a Christmas card.

Or they wish the recipient “Happy Holidays” in Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese and, of all things, Klingon; the recipient getting to pick the language of their “Happy Holidays” without having to pick what those holidays might be. The Druid festival of Nolagh? Kwanzaa? Hanukkah? Ta Chiu?

You’d think in this age of niche marketing when retailers can pinpoint my buying habits from the beer I drink, lawyers would be able to figure out who’d be thrilled to get a Christmas card and who wouldn’t.

Perhaps we should all start sending cards that say, “We’d prefer to wish you a Merry Christmas, but on the off-chance it might upset you, we’ve settled for ‘Seasons Greetings’ in six languages so as not to risk losing your business. Please pick a language and a holiday that works for you and have a Happy Whatever!”

But why stop there? Maybe Stuart McLean could re-write “Dave Cooks a Turkey” for the Vinyl Cafe so it’s more inclusive for secular vegetarians and takes place in the summer. They could call it: “Dave Bakes a Salad.” Or that classic Alistair Simms film “A Christmas Carol” could be released at Halloween and renamed “The Phantom Menaces.”

Or maybe Christmas should just come off the calendar altogether, the way “Spring Break” seems to have taken over the Easter Holidays I grew up with. Call it “Winter Shopping Holiday” or “MasterCard Default Day” or “Family Squabble Festival.”

Of course, we’re almost there aren’t we? Every year around this time, school districts around B.C. gnash their politically correct teeth wondering whether to rename the school Christmas Concert, “Winter Festival.” A few years ago, one school did just that, removing all the traditional religious Christmas songs from the repertoire, leaving only songs about Santa, presents and buying one’s way to happiness (every religion has its songs, I suppose). The outrage forced the school to eat more than its fair share of crow. The following year, a department store in B.C. directed its entire staff to say “Happy Holidays” at the cash till instead of “Merry Christmas.” The store’s owners were roasted like chestnuts by the local media and legions of shoppers still won’t go back there because of it.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m as cynical about the three wise men as I am about the Coca-Cola Santa, but because I love the songs, Scrooge, and the turkey, I’m going to say Humbug to the doyens of political correctness and send cards that say “Merry Christmas” until they officially decide to rename “A Charlie Brown Christmas” “Charlie Brown’s Happy Holidays.”

Tony Wilson is a Franchise and Intellectual Property lawyer at Boughton. He’s written for the Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Sun, and Macleans magazine. You can email Tony at twilson@boughton.ca

This article originally appeared in the December 2004 issue of BarTalk and is reproduced here with permission of both the author and the Canadian Bar Association, British Columbia Branch.