The normally reasonable (if not Reason^TMable) Virginia Postrel defends the politically correct phrase “Happy Holidays” on the grounds that:

I hope to have a happy, though not necessarily merry, December 25. But I wish good-hearted folks like Lileks would consider that Christmas greetings don’t make everyone feel good.

Oh, please. First of all, the word “merry” does not have any religious connotations whatsoever, so anyone who objects to that word is two fries short of a Happy Meal(R). If someone wished me a “merry birthday” or a “merry New Year,” I might look at him a bit odd, as that’s not the usual terminology, but it wouldn’t even occur to me to get offended by it. For another, Christmas is Christmas. If someone wishes you a merry one, and that doesn’t make you feel good, the problem lies with you, not with him. I’ve never had a Jew wish me a happy Hannukah, but you know what? I’d be flattered if one did. I’m not a Jew myself, but I’ve worked with more than a few of them at varying stages of my career. Most of them largely kept their religion to themselves, but one said “Mazel Tov” to my wedding and another said a Jewish blessing when I announced the expected birth of my son. It didn’t occur to me to take offense either time. I took both for what they were: an attempt by a sincere Jew to be nice to me in his own way. I appreciated that. I didn’t go paranoid and interpret it as a backhanded effort to convert me, which it almost certainly was not.

In that vein, I hereby call scroogity on Virginia Postrel. So what if she’s not Christian? As a devout agnostic, neither am I, nor was one of my past Jewish bosses who scratched his head over the fact that a Christian colleague declined to attend the company’s Christmas party on religious grounds. As to that colleague’s reason for not attending, so what if the Bible itself doesn’t say when Jesus’s birthday is? Whether I remain an agnostic for the rest of my life or convert to any other of the world’s major religions, I hereby promise that I do not now, nor will I ever, take offense at being wished a Merry Christmas by anybody. The only conditions of this promise are as follows: (1) it must actually be Christmas, or shortly before it (i.e., wishing me a Merry Christmas on the Fourth of July won’t work) and (2) the wish must be sincere, i.e., you must really mean “Merry Christmas,” and not “get your ass back in church, you heathen.” To everyone else I say, if having someone wish you a “Merry Christmas” does not make you feel good, get help. The problem is with you, not with them.

UPDATE: In a follow-up entry, Postrel acknowledges that most of the email she’s received defending “Merry Christmas” has come from people who “are not in fact Christians but secularists determined to define Christmas as an occasion that has nothing to do with religious faith.” The heading of her post aptly reads “Gee, Maybe I Was Full of Crap Another Reason for ‘Happy Holidays.’” Another reason?! OK, I guess. According to VPostrel, we should now stop wishing each other a Merry Christmas for two reasons: (1) because it is a religious holiday that only Christians can appreciate, and (2) because it is a secular holiday only non-Christians can appreciate.

Given Virginia’s “heads I win, tails you lose” style of argument, it is clear that no one is going to “win” this argument with her between now and this Christmas. That’s OK, we’ve got a whole year to go before next Christmas Holiday. In the meantime, should you ever speak to Virginia Postrel, email her, or correspond with her shortly before any federal or state holiday, be sure to wish her a generic “Happy Holiday” rather than identifying the holiday in question by name. I’m sure she’ll understand.

UPDATE x2: Michelle Malkin, unsurprisingly, agrees.