We wish almost every holiday to be happy, with the notable exception of Christmas, which is merry. How did that come about? In British English, Christmas is happy, and even C.C. Moore’s poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas”, the origin of many things Christmas, ends with “a happy Christmas to all”.
Perhaps to avoid the repetition of the adjective “happy” in the double phrase: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year? When it’s just Christmas on its own, I quite frequently hear “Happy Christmas”.
It’s in commemoration of Santa’s wife.
Mary Christmas
That’s a pretty good theory. I see that you’re in Australia though, which follows British English in many ways. Here in San Diego, I never hear happy Christmas even when it stands alone.
From the Wikipedia article on Holiday greetings:
Question is are Merry, Mary, and Marry Christmas the same to your ears?
I thought it was his drag name.
It should be noted that Moore’s authorship of A Visit From St. Nick has been disputed by Don Foster, the text analyst who outed Anonymous of Primary Colors. Foster’s analysis discusses, among other things, the Happy v. Merry usage.
My first thought was that perhaps “merriment” connoted a good skinful of food and drink - Northern European Christmas being a time-honoured occasion for eating up all the perishable parts of the livestock that had been slaughtered ahead of the cold season when (a) the meat would keep better and (b) there would not be enough fodder for the whole herd, flock, whatever. There would be lean times ahead until the Spring and the best way to tide yourself over would be to put on a few pounds of fat at the Christmas feast-table.
The temptation to check out Merryam-Webster proves irresistible.
Merry does seem to carry short term connotations i.e. the pursuit of an activity which doesn’t last very long. Therefore Merry Christmas makes sense, this being an injunction to have a great time for a short time, while Happy New Year wishes upon the recipient a less frenetic but still pleasant time to follow.
Doubtless these expressions were originally articulated at a time when Christmas lasted for a couple of days, tops. Now that the period has expanded to include the whole of December, and possibly November as well, merry is less appropriate than formerly. It is no simple matter to remain stoically merry for two months and an adjectival revision is long overdue.
Something like Have a Survivable Christmas and a Happy New Year gets my vote.
Just to be completely accurate: in British English, Christmas may be happy, though it’s probably more often merry, especially (as already mentioned) when paired with a happy New Year.
That wiki needs amending. OED’s first cite for Merry Christmas is far earlier. (From the entry for merry, adj, 5, b)
1565 Hereford Munic. MSS (transcript) 209 And thus I comytt you to god, who send you a mery Christmas & many.