The Christmas Wars

I don't watch Fox News very often, but so far the War on Christmas stuff has seemed very minimal to me. I simply haven't come across it at all. Wikipedia's Christmas controversy article discusses a single incident involving Starbucks for 2015. And, oh look who jumped into the battle!

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Businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump supported Feuerstein's claim by suggesting a boycott of Starbucks, stating that "If I become president, we're all going to be saying 'Merry Christmas' again." Many social media users, including other Christians, have perceived the criticism to be an overreaction

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If the goal is to sell as much stuff as possible to customers, then why is using "Seasons Greetings" considered PC rather than just being commercially smart? A retailer should use whatever gets the most customers through the door.Now, I can cite instances where that might not be happening. But generally speaking, using "Season Greetings" ought to be perfectly acceptable unless you've got a butt hurt reason for getting offended. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

PC is a slippery term, but I disagree with your definition. If your meaning were correct then all commercial speech would be PC and applying PC to such speech would be utterly without meaning. I suspect that most people are completely satisfied with "Happy Holidays" type greetings.

Sure. All commercial speech is political, so every term we use to attract people is PC. Sorry but I cannot find much use for your definition. I can agree with that. In fact, I'd set the level even lower. Expressing a belief that others should be treated with human dignity is what right-wing nuts label as PC.

About half of your statement about what the Walmart greeter does is actually about you. I agree that if you believe marginalizing other faiths is okay then you are going to label "Season Greetings" as PC. And you are going to do that without bothering to question the greeter.

The point for whom? Unless you want to insist that greeters ought to be in the business of toughening up their customers' skins, the point might well be the affect on foot traffic into the store and not delivering lessons on how not to take offense. Maybe. It's probably not possible to avoid offending everyone. A commercially viable approach might be to either ignore a few people who are offended either way based on how loud the cash register rings or does not ring.

They espouse it because it is traditional, and most people don't make a link between the "Merry" in the greeting and getting liquored up. You link the two, and I am not saying that you are being unreasonable, but most people understand that the link is not part of the traditional meaning.

Well here is an example of someone use Happy Holidays just to make a point.Texas Official 'Just Might Slap' Next Person Who Says 'Happy Holidays' | HuffPost Latest News

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An elected official in Texas is threatening to slap anyone who wishes him "happy holidays" this year.

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Republican Sid Miller, the state's agriculture commissioner, said on Facebook that people must say "Merry Christmas" to him or nothing at all.

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This being the Internet, many immediately replied to Miller by wishing him "happy holidays," both in response to that post as well as others on his page.
Even the state's Democratic Party got in on the act, replying with a GIF that it says was deleted from Miller's Facebook page.

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Saying 'Happy Holidays' does indeed have a point. Given the large number of actual holidays celebrated over the upcoming period, I'd suggest that the point is both benign and welcoming.

I think you are putting words in my mouth... I don't think "Merry Christmas" is particularly religious or solemn. That part of the meaning of Christmas has played a second fiddle to the commercialized Santa stuff for as long as I can remember.