Florida professor suggests changing 'Merry Christmas' to 'Happy Federal Holiday'

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published 24 December 2015

"Happy Holidays" isn't quite neutral enough for University of Central Florida professor Terri Fine, who proposed a new holiday greeting: "Happy Federal Holiday". She made the suggestion in an op-ed in the campus paper:

Because the U.S. government in some cases and the state government in others have identified certain days during the year as state and federal holidays, including those that fall during the late fall and winter season — Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day — we have no choice but to observe these holidays whether we want to or not. [...] We know that we are not being culturally insensitive by extending to someone a holiday greeting that has no meaning to them because they practice a different religion or no religion at all. [UCF Today]

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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