:eek: Yeah, TMI dude.
You are very lucky then. On their best days they are unpleasant to be around. My favorite thing is when they walk around complaining about a) people saying “Happy Holidays” and -almost in the same breath- b) all the people who are so easily offended these days. :smack:
Yes for South Africa.
While we battle over how much Brits say Merry v Happy (I reckon it’s evenly split), I would say that we don’t ever say ‘Happy Holidays’ - that sounds totally American.
Not Krimble, it’s the traditional scouse slang term Crimbo.
Merry is a common euphemism for drunk.
Yes, definitely in NZ. Along with fake snow, plastic icicle lights, and blow-up snowmen. We tend towards BBQ over turkey (though some still do a traditional roast lunch), but still eat mince pies and plum pudding (along with the pavlova and ice cream), and some poor sod gets to dress up in the fur lined Santa suit in sweltering heat (and often high humidity). 
And in my experience Christmas is almost always Merry.
Never heard the John Lennon song, Happy Christmas (War is Over)?
When I spent the weeks before Christmas (though not the holidays themselves) in South Africa a couple of years ago, I was surprised by the amount of Jingle Bells and White Christmas and Winter Wonderland and all that being played in shopping malls. It seems like the cognitive dissonance between the cultural influence of the Northern hemisphere on the one hand and the actual weather experience on the other hand is working very well.
That’s nothing. They play it up big time in all the giant shopping malls in Bangkok. Targeting those tourists and resident Westerners.
Which has the chorus
“A very Merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear”
Go figure!
The movement to ‘merry’ is, in my opinion, due to the oft-succeeding phrase ‘and a happy New Year’ - i.e. people don’t want to use the word happy twice!