Welcome to the holiday season

I count Black Friday as the official beginning of the holiday season.  From now until New Years, every store you walk into will be covered with cheap red and green decorations and playing Christmas music you’ve been hearing your entire life.  Houses on your dialy commute will slowly put up multicolored lights and fake evergreen wreaths and trees.  And people, every day, people you know and people you don’t know, will say “Merry Christmas.”  Or, well, some of them might be sensitive and say “Happy Holidays.”  That second one doesn’t get to me since New Years is included in those holidays, and I actually find that one something to celebrate.  But I’m an atheist and I don’t really get this Christmas thing.  I don’t hate Christmas, just keep it away from me.  But from today on, hundreds of people will wish me a merry holiday I don’t celebrate.

I am faced with quite a dillema here.  There are several different ways a conversation such as that can go, and here I will lay out these options and try to decide which is best for me.

Situation #1

“Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you to.”

Result: Hypocracy I try to aviod.

Situation #2

“Merry Christmas.”

“Thanks.”

Result: Who ever says that?  Awkward.

Situation #3

“Merry Christmas.”

“Actually I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

Silence.

Result: Perfect strangers feel incredibly awkward, and maybe they even apologize.

Situation #4

“Merry Christmas.”

“Oh, no, I’m an atheist.  I believe that…blah blah blah.”

Result: Although the response I would like to make, it would get me into arguements with perfect strangers.  And that’s just no good.

Situation #5

“Merry Christmas.”

Ignore.

Result: Now I’m a jerk.

Bottom line: Stick with “Happy holidays.”

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