{"id":5112,"date":"2012-11-07T09:01:56","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T22:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/?p=5112"},"modified":"2013-07-02T10:49:03","modified_gmt":"2013-07-02T00:49:03","slug":"how-do-you-say-merry-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2012\/11\/how-do-you-say-merry-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"How do you say Merry Christmas?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Blue<\/a>It’s November\u00a0and that means we’re heading into Christmas – and for many businesses, creating Christmas-related content<\/a> and other planning and preparing is already well underway as selling Christmas comes before the actual date.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a multicultural world,\u00a0should we say Merry Christmas?<\/h2>\n

Most of us don’t want to offend those who don’t believe\u00a0in Christmas. Yet that shouldn’t have\u00a0to mean we can’t acknowledge and celebrate it with those who do believe in it.<\/p>\n

In countries like Australia, Christmas is an important part of our year<\/a> – so many family gatherings and end of year events get caught up with Christmas and the start of summer. We have national a holiday for Christmas Day and Boxing Day – for many, that translates into a week off between Christmas and New Year Day, too, even if you are not Christian.<\/p>\n

And kids get excited by it – whether they are Christian believers or not – so it’s pretty hard to ignore.<\/p>\n

How businesses can say Merry Christmas<\/h2>\n

‘Happy Holidays’ doesn’t work too well – Americans talk about Christmas\u00a0as a holiday more than we do, and not everyone takes Christmas holidays (it’s often a very productive time to work because it’s quiet!)<\/p>\n

‘Seasons greetings’ is a little formal to my mind, but it works by acknowledging what’s going on without mention of any religion (ie Christ in Christmas) – and can incorporate Hanukkah\u00a0and Ramadan which are often close to Christmas anyway.<\/p>\n

I’ve seen businesses\u00a0try a ‘Happy New Year’ or “Hope the year ends well for you’ approach which is well intended but perhaps misses something so loses the\u00a0impact. It is a good way for non-Christian\u00a0businesses\u00a0to give their Christian customers good wishes without compromising their own beliefs and values.<\/p>\n

Jenni Ridyard expresses some great views in a recent blog post about giving Christmas wishes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I like the idea of ‘we wish our Christian customers a Merry Christmas’ – it is politely directed at the relevant people so others can ignore it.<\/p>\n

At the same time, I am not offended by signs that say ‘Happy Chinese New Year’ or ‘Happy Ramadan’ so maybe we just have to accept cultural or religious greetings for what they are – an acknowledgement of someone’s beliefs and good wishes to all.<\/p>\n

Now is the time to be thinking of your Christmas greetings<\/a>, so what will you say to customers and suppliers in general? Will you change the message for specific people?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* image courtesy of 123rf<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s November\u00a0and that means we’re heading into Christmas – and for many businesses, creating Christmas-related content and other planning and preparing is already well underway as selling Christmas comes before the actual date.   In a multicultural world,\u00a0should we say Merry Christmas? Most of us don’t want to offend those who don’t believe\u00a0in Christmas. Yet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-info-tools"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5112"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5125,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112\/revisions\/5125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}