By Chris Carpenter

“Keep ‘Christ’ in Christmas” is a call we seem to hear with growing insistence each year as December rolls around. Some Christians apparently feel offended or marginalized by a broader usage of the phrase “Happy Holidays” in store décor and TV commercials during this festive time of year.

I’m a Christian and tend to wish people “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays,” but I also happily accept the fact that we live in a pluralistic culture in which more than one holiday is celebrated as the calendar year draws to a close. How anyone among the religious majority in the U.S. can possibly feel slighted when they are greeted with “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas” baffles me.

While Christmas and its related celebrations of St. Nicholas Day and Our Lady of Guadalupe may dominate, other faiths commemorate special events and holidays in December as well. Jews mark the Festival of Lights known as Hanukkah that should not go unnoticed, or worse, disrespected by Christians. After all, the Jewish people are Christians’ ancestors in faith and Jesus Christ was a Jew who likely celebrated Hanukkah himself.

Buddhists will mark Bodhi Day (also known as Rohatsu) on December 8th, Wiccans and Pagans will celebrate the Winter Solstice on December 22nd, and followers of Zoroastrianism will commemorate the death of the prophet Zarathustra on December 26th. Interestingly, many of the traditions associated with Christmas have pagan roots. These include the Yuletide and the Yule log, which were originally used to celebrate the Winter Solstice. Christmas Day itself was first a Roman feast of the sun known as Natalis Invicti, translated as “Birth of the Invincible One.” Christians eventually appropriated this feast and turned into Jesus’s birthday since the Bible doesn’t provide an actual date.

So what, you may rightly ask, does this holiday history have to do with those of us who are GLBT? The holiday season and its related family gatherings can be downright painful for GLBT individuals who aren’t yet out to their families or who are out but haven’t found acceptance. Some of us long ago stopped celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah or other holidays as religious events because we found ourselves rejected by the faith in which we were raised because of our sexuality. Still others among us have come to abhor the holiday season for the orgy of consumerism it has become, even as our economy has grown increasingly dependent on Christmas gift shopping for survival.

I invite us all to reflect this month on the common, not-necessarily-religious themes that our world’s various faiths typically call us to consider: peace, concern for the poor, respect for people of all creeds and races, and making new beginnings. When Christians and non-Christians alike embrace the true “reason(s) for the season,” there is really no difference between wishing someone a “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.” A friendly greeting is not something to be taken lightly nowadays, whether the person extending it shares our faith or not.

The GLBT community has proven itself time and time again to be a cheerleader, if you will, for the common good. We aren’t simply concerned about the rights and just treatment of the members of our own community but about all people. Where religion and politics have failed, we have more often than not stepped in. And things are slowly but surely improving! This is cause for celebration, not only during the month of December but all year long. May God bless us all with happy holidays—whatever and however we celebrate—and a happy new year!