Don’t take it personal

Mekayla Butler, Reporter

People can be rather sensitive to say the least. It seems nowadays people will take anything as an attack on them and their beliefs, and currently, Christmas is the subject that people believe is under attack. Any little statement or decision made can be deemed offensive or as an attack, and it has gotten to the point where no opinion on the holiday season is safe from ridicule.

The argument really began when people started to make claims that people were taking “Christ” out of “Christmas”. This meant that too many people and companies use Christmas for a commercial purpose, rather than the fact that it is a religious holiday. This argument does not make much sense, because if that is the case, people who celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Three King’s Day should also feel attacked because their holidays are not “properly represented” in the media and in retail stores.

The winter and fall months have really become known as the holiday season, and it’s only recently that many retailers have truly acknowledged that Christmas is not the only holiday celebrated at this time of the year. It is very rare that you will see the candles of Hanukah or Kwanzaa in advertisements for places like Target or Macy’s, so why would it be fair to exclusively advertise for one specific holiday when there are several others that should have light shed on them too?

Many will argue that the people who complain about unequal representation of holidays during this time of year are people who have something against Christianity, or that Christmas never got any special attention to begin with. The removal of Christian symbols from retail advertisements was never meant to offend Christian people, but rather to say, “If we don’t represent all of the holidays this time of year, we should not represent just the one.” In addition, if the symbols and icons for other holidays were added alongside Christian symbols, people would more likely than not be just as offended by that. A solution to this problem would simply be people coming to terms with the fact that we cannot always please everyone, and sometimes things will not go the way we prefer.

Though it may be hard to understand why people who celebrate other holidays (both religious and not) are upset about unequal representation during this time of the year, it makes perfect sense to accommodate them. Having red cups with snowflakes on them is no less spirited than having red cups with snowflakes and the words “Merry Christmas” sprawled across them, but it is more accommodating to people of other faiths and beliefs.