This week is “Happy
Holidays” greeting time. Everywhere I go, this is part of casual exchanges.
Regardless of which holidays, these words cover all. But do
they?
Seems like an obligation to be happy. With such an obligation,
comes guilt if we can’t.
There are lots of
reasons to encourage gratefulness, wish better health, and let others know you
value them. I’m less sure about happiness; that thing we so casually spew out
as a wish or even half a command. I’m actually not sure what it is.
My mulling is much
less about whether it’s okay to say Merry Christmas to people who may not be
Christians (its fine with me, but this is no longer a universally accepted notion)
than about feeling I wish I had something else I could put out to casual
passersby.
There is the “stay
safe” I’ve had my fill of hearing. One friend replaced that with “stay sane,”
which I like much more. I almost want to substitute STAY SANE for the happy
holidays utterances, except...
©Kristen Feighery
...except that
doing so with strangers will likely be taken as a sign of insanity.
But you here know what I mean. Stay sane, everybody. Happiness is a blessing but not an obligation.
