• flicker@kbin.social
    1254·
    11 months ago

    I’m white. I have blue eyes. And when I was young, my hair was red. I was working retail, and this old lady said “Merry Christmas.”

    Me: “Happy Holidays!”

    Her: “It’s Merry Christmas. I know your boss doesn’t like it, but you should say it to me. So Merry Christmas.”

    Me: “Are you Christian?”

    Her: “Yes.”

    Me: “Well, I’m not. So Happy Holidays.”

    She got so stunned, like I’d slapped her. I was quite ready to get called in for being some kind of way with a customer but I guess she was too afraid of dealing with a heathen. Still, if you’ve ever worked retail, you’d know why this felt like a victory.

    • Destide@feddit.ukEnglish
      261·
      11 months ago

      Hopefully you’re young enough that you didn’t have to deal with the christmas cd on repeat

        • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
          10·
          11 months ago

          Well they don’t have CDs anymore, so how would they repeat the music?

          Good grief, did this really need a /s?

          • pantherfarber@lemmings.world
            9·
            11 months ago

            There’s like 10 Christmas songs. All of them have hundreds of different versions. Doesn’t matter if your not hearing the exact same song. Your hearing the same songs on repeat. My last retail job the muzak box was accessible to everyone in the office so as soon as I would get there I would change the channel.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        81·
        11 months ago

        I worked in a video arcade in the 90s and we had a 1-hour VHS tape on repeat showing on TVs all over the arcade featuring recent music videos, cartoons, etc. That Christmas, ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ came out and it was on that tape. I heard that song every day of December, 8 times a day, 40 times a week, 160 times that month in total.

        I hate that song so much more than everyone else does.

    • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
      711·
      11 months ago

      Still, if you’ve ever worked retail, you’d know why this felt like a victory.

      No idea mate, worked in retail for decades and no idea what you’re on about. But then I never lived in a country full of mentally ill people 😂

      • ChewTiger@lemmy.world
        42·
        11 months ago

        Yeah, I don’t think “mentally ill people” only exist in specific places or that specific areas are “full” of them. I mean, I know for sure at least one deranged person lives in your area.

        Also I highly doubt you truly worked in retail if you never experienced a customer like this. If you did, you must have been lucky and in an extremely high end store.

        People are the same everywhere in the world, no better or worse than anywhere else. Which is kinda great IMO.

  • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
    742·
    11 months ago

    People that say this are so silly.

    You’re not being oppressed. It’s just that saying merry Christmas to a crowd of diverse backgrounds is like wishing your mum a happy fathers day. She won’t be mad or offended, she’ll just think she should have breastfed you.

    • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
      31·
      11 months ago

      No you don’t understand, if I can’t force everyone to be exactly like me that means I’m being oppressed!

      • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
        11·
        11 months ago

        Most “traditions”, including holiday traditions, food culture, etc, are incredibly recent things. But people cling to it like they are the totality of their identify.

    • black_rain@lemmy.world
      17·
      11 months ago

      Or telling someone “happy birthday “ when they’re in a group of people who aren’t having birthdays themselves. Only a three year old would get upset that they’re not included.

    • Wrrzag@lemmy.ml
      8·
      11 months ago

      Maybe it’s different in the US and other cultures, but as an atheist I’ve never seen the phrase as a very religious thing. I say “merry Christmas” and “happy holidays” indistinctly and I’ve never seen anyone offended by the use of either, independtly of their faith (or lack thereof).

      I say “merry Christmas” on the actual Christmas day though.

      • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
        4·
        11 months ago

        No one is offended besides the hardcore Christians. No muslim or orthodox Christian or whatever would be mad if you wish them merry Christmas if that’s the thing where you both live. As always, it’s fake fabricated outrage.

  • Yamainwitch@lemmy.world
    48·
    11 months ago

    I have a neighbor just like this who INSISTS this is a Christian country and it’s Christmas break not WiNtEr break. Satan’s greetings from ya main witch! ✨🥰

  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
    322·
    11 months ago

    True story…

    At work in my department they told us we can put decorations in our (at home!) office but to try and stay religiously neutral. Meanwhile in my friend’s department (same employer) they got an email to wish employees a happy Easter back in April, happy Mawlid (celebration of Muhammad’s birth) back in September and happy Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah in October…

    I’m an atheist so I don’t celebrate any of these things and to me holidays should just be spread equally to give people long weekends, but I can’t help but laugh at the hypocrisy when it comes to Christmas compared to all other holidays through the year…

    • Grayox@lemmy.mlOP
      271·
      11 months ago

      That’s honestly refreshing to hear that your friends department encouraged them to celebrate multiple different religious holidays. There shouldn’t be any problem celebrating religious holidays as long as they are all given equal considerations and the company doesnt play favorites.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
        12·
        11 months ago

        To me anything religious should be treated as such, something private that has nothing to do with your workplace and only secular holidays should exist considering holidays are imposed by the government and there’s supposed to be a separation of religion and State (in my country anyway), but I know my opinion on this subject is pretty extreme.

        • can@sh.itjust.works
          81·
          11 months ago

          The holidays we have are so commercialized they hardly feel religious to me. Christmas and Easter are just times to spend with family, nothing to do with Jesus.

          • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
            2·
            11 months ago

            Then people should have no issue with them being moved around so the holidays are equally divided throughout the year, right? There’s no importance to them happening on the specific dates they do at the moment, right?

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
            31·
            11 months ago

            What annoys me, and I’m Jewish ethnically but I’m an atheist, is the commercialization of Hanukkah. It wasn’t even a major Jewish holiday. People just decided, “well, it’s near Christmas and they used to give raisins. Good enough.” I mean just make up a new holiday or something.

    • ItDoBeHowItDoBe@lemmy.world
      9·
      11 months ago

      I think that is is important to note that there is very little real evidence for Christmas being taken from saturnalia. You can google christmas and saturnalia and come up with plenty of web articles, but looking at the actual history of it makes it pretty clear. Christmas takes place around the same time of saturnalia, sure, but that does not make it a Christian stab at replacing it. Saturnalia was traditionally observed between the 17th and 23rd of December, not the 25th. It was a 5-7 day festival, not a one day festival. Additionally, the church is said to have gotten the 25th by taking the day John’s father was told he would have a son (shortly after the day of attonement), the new testiment statement that Elizabeth was 6 months pregnant when Jesus was conceived, and adding 40 weeks to the end for the average pregnancy. This would put Jesus born in late December. This general time line was documented as being calculated as early as CE 200s.

    • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
      10·
      11 months ago

      The man on the TV said people would get angry at me for saying merry Christmas - the guy in the $6,000 suit - COME ON

  • SlopppyEngineer@discuss.tchncs.de
    16·
    11 months ago

    I work with people in three different time zones. There is always someone having a flower festival, religious day or national holiday. Nobody gets offended for forgetting a holiday or if they did they don’t last long.