Marc’s Musings

Life’s short. Live passionately.

Season’s Greetings

December 18th, 2007 by Marc

It’s happened!

In a pluralistic world, it’s increasingly hard to know what to say at this time of year.

“Merry Christmas” is great but not everyone is a Christian. Having lived in Jerusalem, I know that 12/25 is just another day for Jews, Muslims, and Orthodox Christians. I find people are happily surprised to have a pastor recognize their traditions too.

“Seasons Greetings” is safe. “Holiday wishes” sounds somewhat contrived.

But I just heard myself say, “Happy year-end!” to a board member.

Happy year end?

Yikes. Can you tell I’ve been answering year end giving questions all day?

And it has nothing to do with the yearend 20% off sale I’m having at Fundraisingcoach.com store for blog and ezine folks!

[A colleague just told me, "At least you didn't say 'Happy rear end'! :) ]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 3:14 pm and is filed under church planting, fundraising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 responses about “Season’s Greetings”

  1. Rich said:

    yeah… you’ve probably read about our ‘Seasonal Party’ we had here…

    stoopid PC…..

  2. Marc said:

    But I betcha didn’t see “Happy Rear End” on any banners, huh?

  3. Stephen said:

    (Found you through chrisbrogan.com.) It’s difficult to know what to say in a secular company that’s all gung-ho about inclusion and not offending anyone. ‘Happy Holidays’ sounds so bland, so sanitary, so…unemotional. ‘Merry Christmas’ is awkward because I have no idea whether the person I’m speaking to might be atheist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or something else entirely. A frustrating thing. :(

  4. Marc said:

    Stephen: I agree!

    The hospital I work at still does an Easter Egg hunt. When I first got here, after living in Boston and NY for over a decade, I wanted to say, “Don’t you know you can’t do that anymore?”

    Then I realized I was a pastor in the community and decided to just simply enjoy the 1950’s-ness of it all. :)

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