The day is called Christmas

Happy December and welcome once again to the holiday season!  Has your school or shul started sending out transportation, or class, or minyan information for December 25? Mine has! And just like always the demonic day is referred to in the official school or shul correspondence not as "Christmas", god forbid, but as "Legal Holiday."

Do I need to explain why this annoys me? The day is called Christmas. Everyone knows this. When you use a euphemism you muddle thing up. It takes me an extra second to process that the Legal Holiday is, in fact, what earthlings call Christmas. Imposing that (very slight) inconvenience on me is a trifling, but still discourteous.

Anyway, what do you think will happen if you call the day by its actual name? Will the cholent go bad? Will your members resign en masse? School administrators and synagogue sextons please take note of this! I promise the world will continue to spin on its axis if you use the word "Christmas" in your mailings. And, as an added bonus, you will be speaking in a straightforward manner with all ambiguity removed. Nice, right!

A note to forestall Garnel's obvious objection: No, this isn't the same as the annual Happy Holidays fake national emergency during which conservative commentators make believe that the Jews and their secular liberal friends are destroying Christmas via their unscrupulous use of the phrase Happy Holidays. I'll let Jon Stewart explain why:

Mr. O'Reilly also objects, obviously, to the use of the phrase "happy holidays" as anti-Christian -- although for some people, there is also a celebration of the New Year, so Christmas and the New Year are actually two holidays, so there is a plural, which in the English language necessitates the use of the letter S

Also, some people just don't want to be wished a Merry Christmas, in which case its courteous to use an alternative.

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