I send “Merry Christmas” cards, and I send them to everybody. I am by no means a strongly religious person and the cards generally have an abstract tree or wreath format. But it is called a Christmas card for a reason.
I am equally un-offended when I get nice cards from Jewish friends who wish me a Happy Hanukkah and they know I am not Jewish. It is their holiday and thanks for the card!
I have only ever received one Happy Kwanzaa card, but I kept it as I thought it was cool to get.
I send some cards, and they’re all Christmas cards. I’m not very religious either, so I generally send humor-themed cards. It’s more of a “thinking of you during this crazy time” thing. It’s my understading (and I hope one of our Jewish Dopers will set me straight) that Hannakuh (sp?) is not the “major” holiday that Christmas is for Christians.
At home, the few cards we send say “Merry Christmas”.
We’re Catholic, most of the people we send cards to are Catholic, we wish them a merry christmas. I’ve got a Jewish friend with whom I’ve discussed religion and politics quite a few times - I sent him a Merry Christmas e-card a few years back with a grin as the only message, he thought it was hilarious and sent back a Happy Chanukah one. We’ve been wishing each other happy cross-religion holidays ever since.
I make my own cards every year, and have done so for more than ten years. I’m not religious, the cards have non-religious Christmas-related imagery, and the text has usually been some variant of “Happy Holidays”. No one’s ever complained directly to me about it, but after reading numerous angry comments on this board and elsewhere about it, maybe I’ll rethink things for this year.
Personally, someone can send me a Halloween card at Christmas and it would be be all the same to me; I consider the making and sending of cards is something enjoyable and it’s a personal pleasure to acknowledge my friends and acquaintances in this way. There are in fact several religious or social holidays that all more or less coincide with Christmas, I have numerous acquaintances who are religious but not Christian. My not putting the exact words “Merry Christmas” in a freakin’ greeting card does not mean I want to see Christmas abolished, and I must confess that I find the idea of people getting seriously pissed off about this issue bizarre. Nevertheless, maybe I’ll go ahead and change the wording this year, since it’s apparently become such a major issue.
Note that there really are two Christmases. One is the religious holiday (birth of Christ and all that) and the other is the secular holiday that’s celebrated by the majority of Americans. So I don’t mind secular Christmas cards; trees, wreaths, Santas, stockings, etc., but cards with crosses on them make me slightly uncomfortable.
I have a Pagan friend who used to be anti-Semitic, I send her Jewish festival cards (her b’day is near Rosh Hashanah), she loves them.
Otherwise, it’s all “Merry C’mas” cards.
Btw, this morning, I worked the cash register at a retail giant, which has been the center of some controversy over a decision to prefer “Happy Holidays” to “Merry Christmas”- as I rang up $100s in toys & TVs & stereos & such, I felt quite comfortable wishing them MC because I know in my bones they ain’t spending tons of money to celebrate Hanukkah or Kwaanza or Yule.
Just about everyone celebrates New Year’s, whereas only a few of my friends are actually religious. Like El Kabong, I make my own cards every year–this year’s is a hand-colored photo of Tallulah Bankhead with her head thrown back laughing, and it says, “Happy New Year, Darling!”
I’d prefer the “holidays” cards, not because of any PC reason, but simply because NZ fairly well shuts down until halfway through January, so Christmas is really only a small part of the whole holiday season here.
That said, where I can find them, I send “Happy New Year” cards. Guess I just look at the broader picture.
I don’t send many, but they’re always “Merry Christmas” cards. I don’t think I’d send a “Happy Holidays” one. It just sounds silly - as if I were sending a card that said “Happy Summer” or “Happy January”. In any case, I don’t think I’ve ever seen “Happy Holidays” cards on sale anywhere here.
I despise secular Christmas, so this year I’m sending religious cards to my Christian friends and generic winter/holiday cards to everyone else. They’ll be pretty, though, if I can manage.
If I send Christmas Cards to Jewish people by mistake (usually people at work) then I’m really embarassed. If they say “You did know I’m Jewish, didn’t you?” I say no, and I hope I didn’t offend. They always say no, they are used to it, but since they brought it up, I know it’s not one of their favorite peices of mail. So I won’t send one next time, not even a Happy Holidays card, which is just an obvious stand-in for a Christmas card. It would be like sending an Indian a Columbus Day card, then changing it to a New World Meets Old World card and expecting them to be happier to be reminded.
I send non-religious Christmas cards to the non-Jewish friends we have; the Jewish friends get ‘Happy Holidays’ or ‘Happy Hanukkah’, whichever I happen to find in the store. Hanukkah isn’t that big a holiday for them, so (the friends I have asked) don’t mind not getting cards for it.
I don’t really discriminate much between the two phrases. I absolutely do not understand why some people get het up about the “Happy holidays” phrase. I don’t care what my cards say, though I do take care to send a non-Xmasy version to my Jewish friends.
In the past, I usually bought Unicef cards, which have “Season’s greetings” or another wording, only in 6 languages. I liked that a lot. Now that we have a family and are sending out the Dreaded Annual Newsletter, I’ve trimmed down to a photo and the letter on nice wintery paper (I like snowflakes). Putting in a card too cost a fortune and was too much.
