“Merry Christmas!” shouts one wonderful store attendant.

“Happy Holidays” says another, apparently a spawn of Satan intent on destroying Christmas for everyone.

For some reason, this debate pops up every Christmas season – Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas. There is even a Facebook group this year stating “It’s Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays!”

I can sympathize with both sides. For Christians, we feel constantly under attack, and for years have seen Christmas become more and more commercialized and less about Jesus. So, when we hear “Happy Holidays” in place of Christmas, its simply another attack on Jesus.

On the Happy Holiday’s side, you have those people who want to be sensitive to those who don’t celebrate Christmas. After all, if you work with the public, you are often dependant on the customers, and if you tick someone off then your business suffers. Most of the “front line” people are following orders from a corporate office somewhere anyways, and are worried about making ends meet with an $8 an hour job and don’t want to risk losing that.

So how should Christians respond? Yell at the poor clerk or waitress? Write a nasty letter to the company headquarters? Join a Facebook group? How about another option…

We complain all the time about taking “Christ” out of “Christmas” but perhaps we as Christians should take a close look at our own actions to see if we are the ones omitting Christ by our actions. Lets take a chill pill if someone says “Happy Holidays” to us. After all, lets look at the phrase “Happy Holidays.” While we’ve co-opted the phrase holiday to cover everything from Easter and Christmas to the 4th of July and Valentine’s day, the word Holiday comes from two words: Holy Day. So it is not as if someone is saying, “Merry Winter Solstice Time!” They are actually wishing us a happy holy day. (BTW, the same kind of craziness applies to the whole X-mas thing. The X is the chi, first letter of Christ, and Xmas was an abbreviation going back to the 1400s. But I digress…)

So this Christmas Holy Day season, let us as Christians respond with love, grace, and CHRIST in whatever greeting we get. Better yet, let us be the light of Christ in all circumstances. Sounds like a good plan to me…