To the person who made up the whole idea of "We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year," how dedicated you are to a self-explainatory factor of wishing to yourself upon a star to look up in the heavens at one point of time, thinking to yourself that everybody's Christmas is like your own. I suppose that you didn't think to supress the fact that everyone else's Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah isn't exactly celebrated at the same place at the same time at the same happening of events going on around you. I adore that you put yourself through the perplexing process of actually trying to make a song that revolves around the grand ole carolers of the night, going door to door, singing of events of good forecomings and tales of the past, present, and future, but you limit yourself to a point of no return just refusing to accept the fact that there's poverty in the world, violence in the world, and to trump everything else, a government that does a self-sacrificing ritual of money-burning and war-declaration.
Of course, you tend to also forget that the Holidays themselves aren't just about Christmas. They are back to the basics of life and culture around the whole inspiring whispers of Jesus Christ's rebellion on death and bringing us back to life. I, being a Catholic, do celebrate the usual festivity of opening presents, getting with family, and celebrating the birth of the son of God, our savior (not to offend any others of, in fact, any other religion out there just happening to come upon this post). Alas, you just tend to browse around our pure manufactory and not the story behind those gifts and wonderful Christmas events that you've had or the wonderful gifts you've received as a result of that holiday.
Care to explain?
Aigis
Annnnggggst.
Celebrate it or not, December 25th is Christmas. It can be other things as well, but it's still Christmas, because Christmas is celebrated on that day. And I don't see what's wrong with giving your best wishes that people enjoy their December 25th, even if that particular date holds no significance for them.
Would you complain if I told you to have a happy Tuesday? You can still have a happy Monday, and Wednesday through Sunday, but I'm just being more specific with my well-wishes.
And also, like it or not, Christmas is a secular holiday as well as a celebration of Christ's birth. Essentially what most people are celebrating (that celebrate it) on that day is Gift Giving Day, which happens to share the name of the Christian son of God.
Plus you're making a pretty big assumption when you talk about how everyone else is focused only on the material possessions of Christmas, rather than the thoughts behind them. That just sounds to me like "I'm better than all of you, even though I don't actually know you or how you think when you give gifts".
What it looks like to me is that you've just heard a bunch of things about how Christmas is purely consumerist now and you've taken them at face value, as if these people actually know how other people think.