this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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Completely trivial point, but a non-USAist I don't think I'll ever stop finding the phrase "the Holiday Season" weird. If you mean Christmas because you want people to buy it as a Christmas present, then just say Christmas! I guess it's to be non-religious but I just find it funny to say "the holiday season" to mean winter when the season that everyone goes on holiday is summer.
In the US, there are multiple holidays people get together for. Halloween (to a lesser degree), Thanksgiving, Christmas (or Hanukkah), New Years. Extended families will often get together multiple times for these and then not see each other again until the next year. Thanksgiving really kicks off the retail season with black Friday, but there's also a lot of time off during the winter time from school and work.
It really is a season with Christmas at the center of it. A lot of our "Christmas" songs don't even mention Christmas. It's just songs about winter.
That much makes sense, but when it's companies releasing products they hope will be bought as Christmas presents then it's just odd to hear them skirting round the word "Christmas". Unless you guys buy each other PS5s for new year?
It's also somewhat inclusive of Lunar New Year and Diwali. More broadly, it's a public recognition that not everyone celebrates Christmas to make it clear they're accepting of diversity.
Maybe it's the Canadian in me, but I don't wish anyone a "Merry Christmas" unless maybe if I specifically know they celebrate Christmas; I almost always say "Happy Holidays!"
Yeah it makes sense, just sounds odd. Maybe it's because here in Britain Christmas is kind of a thing for everyone almost entirely independent of religion. Cultural differences and all that.
When I was a kid, it wasn't entirely uncommon to get a big gift during a random holiday get-together.
But I think "holidays" is more of a generic retail term used to get people to buy more and feel less limited.
I think it could also be cultural difference in the use of the word "holiday". In Britain a holiday is what you'd call vacation, whereas our bank holidays are what you'd call public holidays. We don't generally refer to Christmas and New Year as holidays, even though that's when you take time off work, because you're not "going on holiday".
I had no idea. I think that pretty much explains the confusion then.
I think of it like there's more than just Christmas being celebrated at the end of the year, so to include them all it's easier to just say the holiday season
Yeah I get it, it's just one of those phrases that sounds weird to the non-American ear
Where I live we have a bunch of small holidays in the spring. Winter only has the one big one. Spring seems more the season for them
In a lot of countries (Northern Hemisphere) Summer is the holiday season, but that has never been my experience in the US. So it might not be as strange from that perspective.
It is courteous to other religions by not assuming everyone is Christian, and doesn't hurt me at all, so why not?
As I said in another reply, yeah it makes sense, just sounds odd. Maybe it's because here in Britain Christmas is kind of a thing for everyone almost entirely independent of religion. Cultural differences and all that.