After a good deal of hunting around I have finally managed to find some cards that just say “Season’s Greetings” and do not sneakily add anything about Christmas on the inside. I made a point of thanking the lady in the small, independent card shop for stocking them, and she thanked me in turn because someone had been in and harangued her about them. I do try hard to be sympathetic, and friends and family who I know to be Christians will get Christmas cards, but I have a hard time getting my head around the idea that allowing people to believe in a religion other than your own, or indeed no religion, somehow amounts to “persecution”.
I should note also that Clinton’s did have a small stock of New Year cards, which they presumably think are safe. One of them was just perfect for Kevin.
Having said that, most of you on the far side of the pond are going to be getting Christmas cards whether you like it or not. That’s partly because I bought a lot, thinking I wouldn’t be able to find any non-Christmas ones, but mainly because of our beloved Post Office. It used to be that there were standard prices for sending cards overseas, but these days everything is done by weight, and the PO have cunningly set the lowest weight band so narrow that large numbers of perfectly normal cards and letters won’t be in it. A very apologetic lady at the PO said I should bring all of my overseas cards in to be weighed, just in case. So most of you will get exactly the same card, which will save a lot of time.
Note to Post Office management: this sort of behavior is what folks here on the Internet call “Evil”. I know you are suffering from a declining market share, but this sort of trickery isn’t going to help.
And yes, sending a card from the UK to the US is significantly more expensive than sending one the other way, even if you do fit into the lowest weight band.
I’ve been making this point in the Oxfam shop for years now, given I have assorted Jewish and agnostic friends.
Last year I pointed out that the ‘seasons greetings’ ones all had religious pictures while the ‘happy Christmas’ ones were the non-denominational nature studies etc. Duh!
Dunno if that got passed up the line but this year I have tasteful snow scenes offering ‘warm wishes for the festive season’ and appropriate religious sentiments to go with stable, magi, star of Bethlehem. Result.
It depends on what you mean by appropriate though. I tend to think that pictures of Odin in a red suit surrounded by elves are not very Christian.
In my part of the world even tasteful snow scenes are wrong as it’s the middle of summer. It’s very difficult to get it right for everybody.
Odd, I don’t remember having any particular trouble getting “Season’s Greetings” cards when I was over there.
I was surprised. I’ve never had any trouble here before.
>>someone had been in and harangued her about them<<
Ah. Decidedly the Christian thing to do.
My strategy is to celebrate Christmas even though I’m not a christian — the more people celebrate Christmas secularly, the sooner we can claim the holiday back from the christians. Therefore I don’t mind getting Christmas cards either, even religious ones. Although I wouldn’t want to send cards with a religious theme myself (but we make our own so that isn’t a problem). And of course it helps that the Finnish word for Christmas is derived from Yule, not Christ.
Well I’m not sure we want people celebrating Christmas secularly. It is a religious festival, after all. Allowing other religions to celebrate their midwinter festivals, and allowing non-religious people to also have a midwinter holiday, would be fine by me.
Personally I try to set aside the winter solstice for any celebrations, leaving the 25th for the Christians, but due to the inter-relationship of church and state in the UK that can be hard.
Yes, it’s a Christian holiday, but most of the festivities (tree, presents, candles, family gettogethers, food, Father Christmas, etc.) are older traditions, appropriated by Christianity for their biggest holiday. I don’t see a problem celebrating midwinter at Christmas.