Reply #1: at least in manhattan, saying "merry christmas" IS promoting christianity [View All]

[unblock]

i'm a jew, but i grew up in a VERY waspy town in the midwest. there, people said "merry christmas" and i agree, they just meant good wishes. they quite reasonably assumed that everyone celebrated christmas, because about 99.7% of the town DID celebrate christmas.

but in manhattan, where i now work, everyone knows there are a lot of jews and other non-christians here, and everyone here knows that saying "merry christmas", unless you KNOW your audience to be christian, is most definitely a pointed remark designed to put peer pressure/intimidation on your potentially non-christian audience to make them feel that "normal" people celebrate christmas.

this is obviously all the more so when the person saying "merry christmas" KNOW their audience to be jewish. then it's just outright obnoxious.

(my personal views, ignore the fact that i'm a moderator)