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insufferableninja t1_j140li8 wrote

Reply to comment by PotentialAccess5401 in Back again this year: A site to control the decorative holiday lights on a Portland house by mikewhoneedsabike

Yeah, that was totally my point. 🙄

I say happy holidays, because not everyone celebrate Christmas, or Kwanzaa, or Chanukah.

Pretty sure the cards I sent out this year said "seasons greetings".

I don't care about Christmas as a religious holiday; I'm not xtian and the christos took all the trappings of the holiday from various pagan celebrations anyway.

On the other hand, what other seasonal holiday do people put up lights for in the winter? Not Thanksgiving, or Kwanzaa AFAIK, or Chanukah, or the winter solstice, or ... anything really. They're just Christmas lights.

There's a place for generality, and there's a place for specificity. You wouldn't call the menorah or the kinara a "holiday candlestick", after all. So why "holiday tree" or "holiday lights" when those are the trappings of a particular holiday?

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Staff_Struck t1_j1425vq wrote

We don't celebrate Christmas but we still put lights up for the holidays because it's fun

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insufferableninja t1_j148mfe wrote

Sure. And if you decided that you wanted to put out a yule log because that's fun, would you call it a "holiday log"?

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Staff_Struck t1_j14z61u wrote

As we celebrate yule, we call it a yule log. I wouldn't say someone is wrong for calling it a holiday log, though that would be a lot more confusing than holiday lights

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TheW83 t1_j140ygb wrote

I say Happy Holiday because most people only celebrate one.

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nsa_reddit_monitor t1_j14fm0q wrote

Fun fact, "holiday" is a religious term. It's literally just a lazy way of saying "holy day".

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insufferableninja t1_j14lhdu wrote

Language evolves. In the UK holiday means vacation, in the US it means time off. Or do you think that Labor Day, a national holiday, is a religious day?

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StateChemist t1_j143dkp wrote

Oh shit, I better take down the blow up dragon with a Santa hat on it. Wouldn’t want people to assume I actually go to church because I put up Christmas TM decorations and am being disrespectful to those who celebrate other holidays…

Lights are there to bring a smallest ounce of joy to anyone who is capable of seeing shiny things and go, oh that’s nice.

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insufferableninja t1_j1488zp wrote

I'll tell my Hindu neighbor that he can't put up Christmas lights anymore.

Christmas is a secular holiday, however much the goofy christians want it to be otherwise.

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Arkynsei t1_j14ble5 wrote

I've never seen one half of a username be so accurate. This is.. tiring to read.

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