"Merry Christmas" is the new rebellion

After working in a secular environment for years, being conditioned to never say "Merry Christmas" for fear of offending someone, it has been weird to work in a Christian environment (like I do now) where the reverse is true. People fully embrace "Merry Christmas" and some people are offended if you don't use it in giving your December well-wishes.

Since I've always preferred "Merry Christmas" anyway ("Happy Holidays" is fine, but "Season's Greetings" sounds like a phrase that was created in 1928, and seems so old-timey and irrelevant now), I've been happy with this transition back to my original holiday greeting, but I still catch myself saying "Merry Christmas" guiltily, as if I'm getting away with something by being non-generic.

Maybe I've sunk into a false sense of security, living in a place with a higher Christian population than I'm accustomed to. It seems like you're less likely to get busted using "Merry Christmas" in Nashville than up in Michigan. I feel like "Merry Christmas" is just more the norm down here. I noticed last December when I visited this area that everyone said "Merry Christmas" to me (as opposed to "Happy Holidays") -- waitresses at Shoney's, clerks at the mall, sweet gentlemen holding the door open for me, even the skycap at the airport. I even had a life-long Nashville resident tell me that he had never thought of a Christmas Tree as a Christian symbol (I was talking about the difficulty of buying "holiday" cards for a secular corporation and how anything that had any type of Christmas ornament, symbol, or reference was taboo).

And I guess that I just don't buy the idea anymore that people are so easily offended by "Merry Christmas." I know I wouldn't be offended by someone wishing me a "Happy Chanukkah" or "Happy Kwanza" or "Happy Winter Solstice" or "Happy Boxing Day" or "Merry Festivus"! Seriously, try me!