Happy Holidays¶
527 words on Food
I am quite amused by the ‘happy holidays’ screams of happiness our American friends are experiencing. In short, American businesses, being the politically correct entities that they are, seem to have decided that wishing peoplesome vague ‘happy holidays’ rather than a concrete ‘merry christmas’ is a good thing. ‘Good’ as in keeping the christian customers happy without alienating those who aren’t christians as they can still map that wish to the new year or whatever hanukkah, kwanzaa or other celebration they like to indulge in. In addition, I assume this avoids problems with and for the employees as well who may not wish to greet their subjects customers with ‘merry christmas’ or at least may not be able to do that wholeheartedly.
And now some good old American christian extremists started to find that behaviour objectionable and want to hear people say ‘merry chrismas’ between the seasonal muzak. They might be vocal, but let’s see who wins this one. In the end it should be all about money. So if the christian extremists don’t buy at places wishing them ‘happy holidays’ and the non-christians decide to not buy at places wishing them ‘merry christmas’ – rather than just being irritated by the wish, we’ll see who outnumbers and outpays whom.
Of course, certain businesses may have a customer base that let’s them wish ‘merry christmas’ to their customers without losing money (christian churches, say). But in the big picture, I assume that the world, and particularly the U.S.A., are diverse enough to make sure these things don’t catch on outside the christian ghettos.
Personally, I find that wishing people ‘happy holidays’ is going a bit too far because I don’t support the event and don’t consider it particularly enjoyable. It’s particularly sad that you apparently need people to start some nutty religion just to get a few days of straightforward gluttony out of it without anybody daring to bitch about that. So, anyway, I’ll stick with wishes for a happy new year (which might be disputable as well, but shouldn’t be insulting), seeing that nobody really liked me wishing them a ‘tolerable festive season’ last year, which I considered an honest wish…
Following that spirit, I invited friends over for dinner tonight – making use of the time people are suddenly prepared to take for such things at this time of the year. It was nice and very non-christmassy. We made sushi together which was fun with many types of fish (tuna, salmon, cod, smoked eel and another white type the name of which I forgot), beef, fried mushrooms, fried tofu, cucumbers and the typical omelette (‘tamago’) which people invariably like despite first thinking that ‘egg sushi’ sounds boring. We also had the standard miso soup to keep us happy while making the sushi – not that people didn’t indulge in eating the ‘rough’ ends of the rolls at that time as well, and my favourite mango dessert – all of which was surprisingly eaten despite everybody being stuffed beyond repair just minutes before. And to top things off along the meal, we didn’t only have wine but also made fresh fruit juice from apples, oranges, grapefruits and others. Yum.
