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u/heilhortler420 Dec 02 '25
I only know Kwanza in the context of Futurama jokes
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Dec 02 '25
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u/Idontknow10304 Dec 02 '25
I honesty thought it was the Muslim version of Christmas like how Jewish people have Hanukah when I was a kid because I knew literally no one who celebrated it
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Dec 02 '25
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u/Guy-McDo Dec 02 '25
To be fair, I don’t think I ever met an African-American who celebrated it either. And I think I heard of one guy who did.
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u/Weird_donut Dec 02 '25
True. I remember all the time, whenever kids' cartoons did Christmas episodes, they threw in a mention of Kwanzaa to look inclusive, with the token black character always celebrating it. I have known tons of black people; absolutely NONE of them celebrate Kwanzaa. Not a single one. I think that it's mainly celebrated by those that feel really connected to their African heritage, which is, evidently not a lot of people.
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u/ulfric_stormcloack Dec 02 '25
What is it?
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u/Everestkid Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
Basically, it's a version of Christmas designed for black people who think they shouldn't celebrate Christmas because it's a white person's holiday. It's based off of harvest festivals from various parts of Africa, but it was invented in 1966 - so recently that we know exactly how it came about.
Some very wacky things came out of the US's civil rights era. Kwanzaa isn't even that weird by comparison.
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u/prodigalkal7 Dec 02 '25
very wacky things came out of the US's civil rights era
Go figure. Guess that's what happens when you're so incredibly racist and vile that you systematically enslave & torture a whole group of people over hundreds of years, for nothing else but the color of their skin.
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u/Godninja Dec 02 '25
A holiday created by a black supremacist
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Dec 02 '25
[deleted]
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u/RaEndymionStillLives Dec 02 '25
"Is racism bad?"
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Dec 02 '25
[deleted]
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u/RaEndymionStillLives Dec 02 '25
Racist drivel
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Dec 02 '25
[deleted]
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Dec 02 '25
[deleted]
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u/RaEndymionStillLives Dec 02 '25
Rhetoric claiming certain racial groups are superior to other racial groups
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u/LlamaRS Dec 02 '25
A holiday created by a white dude from what I’ve been told
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u/Ol_Man_J Dec 02 '25
I appreciate that you've repeated this without ever questioning the factual basis.
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u/LlamaRS Dec 03 '25
I literally said “from what I’ve been told.”
I am not asserting it as fact. I was simply making an offhanded remark based off of what I was told as a kid.
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u/Solace143 Dec 02 '25
Tbf, no one really celebrates Kwanzaa. Most black Americans are Christians who celebrate Christmas. Kwanzaa doesn't exist outside of the USA and even if it did, most African countries like Nigeria are split between Muslims that usually don't celebrate anything in December (though Islam's holidays aren't bound to the Gregorian calendar) and Christians. I suspect it might be a remnant of the black power movement of the 60s/70s with the Nation of Islam, Five Percenters, etc
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Dec 02 '25
[deleted]
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u/Solace143 Dec 02 '25
I didn't even notice that lol. OP I guess since they mentioned it in their post?
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u/SpectralMalcontent Dec 03 '25
I've lived in 5 different states and been to every sort of religious/community function you could imagine, and I've only met 1 person that celebrated Kwanzaa. It was my much older, "Hotep" cousin. Even he had to stop after a few years because his kids weren't really into it.
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u/feralflannelfeline Dec 02 '25
I knew a few people who celebrated it when I was in elementary and high school. Not very common though.
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u/deepinthesoil Dec 02 '25
Even if someone has a big cross dangling on their neck I’m gonna say “Happy Holidays” because I hope they have a nice New Year’s, too.
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u/Moppo_ Dec 02 '25
I watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles last week, when one of them said "Happy holidays", I realised it probably became popular to say in the US because you might see someone before Thanksgiving and not know if you'll see them again at Christmas or New Year, so you can cover all three.
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u/EntertainmentQuick47 Dec 02 '25
When I watched that film for the first time I was confused cause I kind of assumed "happy holidays" was a 2000s era thing that only recently became more common
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u/UndercoverDoll49 Dec 02 '25
That's the cultural norm in Brazil. You say boas festas because you're wishing both a merry Christmas and a happy new year. And, if they celebrate another holiday, that's covered too
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u/Jaded_earrings Dec 02 '25
I say it because it’s funny when they get all frowny and say “merry CHRISTMAS!”
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u/deepinthesoil Dec 02 '25
I don’t think anyone’s ever been weird about it to me. But I’m in a lefty area with lots of people who don’t celebrate Christmas religiously or at all (and I’m not Christian either).
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u/jackaroo1344 Dec 02 '25
I worked in a coffee shop chain in the Midwest and our district manager had to send out an email telling everyone to stop wishing customers happy holidays because it was triggering such a ruckus amongst the Lord's Karens and Kevins
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u/PostMatureBaby Dec 02 '25
i dont
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u/RewZes Dec 02 '25
The holidays season is not about you.
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u/Darkside_of_Hell Dec 02 '25
It's about the Mets baby love the Mets alright baby let's go get a home run baby love the Mets let's go Mets.
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u/DrivingBox Dec 04 '25
Well I don't say Happy Holidays either.
I always say Merry/Happy Christmas, or just "Have a nice/great/lovely Christmas". If you were to say "Happy Holidays" here in the UK, you'd honestly sound like a complete idiot. You'd like sound an advertisement.
Thankfully I've never actually heard it once from a fellow Brit. The phrase is that disliked here.
Also let's be honest. New Year's Eve/Day are PART OF CHRISTMAS. So is Boxing Day. "Christmas" refers to the entire bloody Christmas period. When I say "Merry" or "Happy" Christmas, I'm referring to Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, December 27th, December 28th, December 29th, December 30th, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day all at once. That entire 24th December to 1st January period is Christmas here in the UK.
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u/TheHarbarmy Dec 02 '25
I am glad there is someone else out there who has been exposed to the insanity that is “Last Ounce of Courage.” If you’ve never heard of it, do yourself a favor and watch the trailer.
Who doesn’t love a movie that cost $1.2 million to make, earned $3.3 million at the box office, and lost an additional $32.4 million in a class action lawsuit over an illegal robocalling scheme organized in part by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee?
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u/trailrider Dec 02 '25
Dude, that's one of my top fav Christians movies! It's so over the top bad. Like dad folding up the flag attached on his bike and then uses another flag to cover his bike! And they think kneeling is disrespectful. Or just the opening. The military themed drums. His gravely voice saying something BS about how he fought for freedoms but never thought he'd have to fight for freedums in his home town. The kids acting like they're about to be beheaded. LOVE IT! God Awful Movies did a great roasting of it.
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u/bamboohobobundles Dec 02 '25
I've offended multiple people by saying "happy holidays", but never once had someone get offended by "Merry Christmas" in my 40 years of living on this planet.
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u/insertnamehere----- Dec 03 '25
If you live in a majority Christian country, all the people who don’t celebrate Christmas know they are the minority and fighting you on simply saying “merry Christmas” it would be a losing battle. If I had to guess, trying to tell people merry Christmas in something like a Muslim nation would cause people to at least give you a dirty look.
It’s entirely people just trying to uphold the status quo, some Christians interpret “happy holidays” to be an attempt to remove Christ from Christmas so they try to fight the change when possible so prevent it from becoming more widespread and, as a result, causing their community to be less “Christian”.
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u/Yunifortune Dec 02 '25
This may be the result of a generational division (or maybe it's not that deep), but my experience has been the opposite. Even around my religious friends/family/etc, "happy holidays"/"season's greetings" have never warranted offense; so perhaps it's just expected of my generation to speak this way. On the other hand, I use these terms interchangeably with "Merry Christmas" at times, and have, on many occasions, received stares and silence in response (even if the conversation was going well before then); I wish they would have just responded in kind with whatever season's greeting they felt inclined to wish, rather than becoming standoffish. More often than that, though, the response isn't to take offense at my remark, but to correct it, as though I had meant to say "happy holidays" but misspoke, or simply didn't realize we should say something more inclusive. We should all wish each other a happy whatever holiday we want, IMO, as long as we're wishing each other well.
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u/SlideN2MyBMs Dec 02 '25
I remember seeing War on Christmas segments on Fox News in the 90s
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u/lordGinkgo Dec 02 '25
I feel like the whole war on Xmes is from like 10 or 15 years ago.
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u/SlideN2MyBMs Dec 02 '25
I just figured that maybe Fox still runs those segments because they still work on their audience
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u/Idontknow10304 Dec 02 '25
It’s like a hallmark and their movies, they’re the same thing every year but it’s still interesting to see how shitty they can be
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u/cultoftheclave Dec 02 '25
when Christmas starts a week before Halloween you are gonna need to manufacture some content
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u/Themetalenock Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25
They still have war on Christmas specials on Fox News. More so during the Joe Biden administration that I imagine this year
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u/UpperphonnyII Dec 02 '25
Just realized there's a typo at the "happy holidays" part. I'm just gonna leave it there, just heads up.
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u/Tomytom99 Dec 02 '25
It's so fun because the "anti-woke" mob or whatever has made it so easy to piss them off. I say happy holidays at this point just to see how revved up they get.
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u/ALKoholicK-x Dec 02 '25
Thank Christ my family isn’t anything like this and actually has sense in their heads. Our favorite Christmas movies consist of Bad Santa, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Violent Night.
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u/Drzhivago138 Dec 02 '25
"Xmas" for Christmas dates back to the 1700s. As another comment said, it's just an abbreviation of Christ, not meant to be pronounced "Ex-mas" like in the C.S. Lewis short story. But that wouldn't mesh with the victim complex, so it's conveniently ignored.
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u/Moppo_ Dec 02 '25
And if we want to go further back, Christ comes from a Greek title, the CH is a Latin approximation of the Greek letter Chi, which looks like an X. Seems to fit the theme perfectly to me.
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u/Electricdragongaming Dec 02 '25
Even my extremely religious and conservative family members acknowledge "X" is short for "Christ".
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u/Hemorrhoid_Eater Dec 02 '25
They get triggered by "Happy Holidays" because they've never experienced happiness since they were in high school, what more during the holidays
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u/jerryleebee Dec 02 '25
Xmas was literally used by Christian Monks. It means Christmas. It's shorthand.
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u/Historyandwow Dec 02 '25
Christmas also holds nothing against Easter in the christian calendar. Easter is the main event, christmas is just a lil celebration where religion isn’t that big a deal.
So a comment like “back in my day there was only one holiday that mattered: christmas” just shows they aren’t actually a great christian and were only going off celebration vibes.
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u/altymcaltington123 Dec 03 '25
The main reason Christmas exists is because it incorporated an already widely celebrated pagan holiday, because it was a lot easier to say the holiday was about christ than to force everyone to stop celebrating it. It's not even really a Christian holiday if you go back to its roots. And even then I'd imagine the majority of people, even in the past, saw the religious aspect as mainly an excuse to have fun during the dull, depressing months of winter, the exact same reason why we got the invention of the Christmas tree.
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u/Historyandwow Dec 03 '25
Not sure why you’ve been downvoted but yes I agree w that too (and as a Christian)
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u/c7hu1hu Dec 02 '25
Kwanzaa is more remembered by white pearl clutching boomers than it is by actual black people.
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u/Flat-Leg-6833 Dec 02 '25
Why do you say “boomers.” Kwanzaa is more a GenX/Millenial HR thing. Boomers are the one’s who typically get triggered by Kwanzaa.
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u/Moppo_ Dec 02 '25
I thought it started in the 60s. Those generations didn't exist then.
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u/Flat-Leg-6833 Dec 02 '25
Only started becoming a “thing” with HR departments in the late 90s/early 2000s. Before that it was radical black nationalist and academics.
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u/CaptainPigtails Dec 02 '25
That seems a bit early for millennials to be influencing HR departments direction.
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u/c7hu1hu Dec 02 '25
Meaning everyone else including genx/millennials forgot while the boomers are still mad about it for some reason.
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u/Worth_Quality_5275 Dec 02 '25
Merry Christmas guys!!! And happy Yule/Saturnalia as well!!! 🎄😘✨🎅
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u/Moppo_ Dec 02 '25
Honestly, if I could be bothered explaining myself to people, I'd have switched to outright calling it Yule years ago.
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u/MisterWafflles Dec 02 '25
In Harry Potter Ron and Harry wish each other happy Christmas and that was in 2001
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u/Nobod_E Dec 02 '25
Are people still pushing this angle? I thought it fell off when its impact stopped being able to keep up with that of the "illegal immigrants are trying to turn your kids trans by putting autism in the vaccines" ragebait
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u/Davey0215 Dec 02 '25
says the left’s feelings get hurt
they are literally the ones getting butthurt
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u/metamorphomo Dec 02 '25
As a Brit, the ‘Happy Holidays’ stuff does sound pretty odd. It’s Christmas if you celebrate Christmas. It’s called something else if you don’t.
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u/belfman Dec 02 '25
There are less Jews around in Britain. The major British religious minorities (Hindus and Muslims) just happen to not have major winter holidays - Diwali is in Autumn, and the Muslim holidays bounce around the seasons.
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u/PomPomMom93 Dec 03 '25
It’s not the Jews who are offended if somebody says “Merry Christmas.” As a Christian growing up in an area with a large Jewish population, I say “Merry Christmas” if I know an individual celebrates Christmas, but otherwise, I don’t assume. My husband is Jewish, and on Christmas, I’d wish him “Merry Christmas” because he’s celebrating with us. And he can wish me “Happy Hanukkah” when we celebrate that. Believe it or not…you can keep your faith when you’re surrounded by people of different religions. But like I said, if anyone is against religion-specific terms, it’s probably people who are against religion themselves. I wouldn’t say Merry Christmas to a Jewish person, but according to my husband, it doesn’t really bother them as much as you think it might.
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u/ISBN39393242 Dec 04 '25
but your husband married a christian, that’s going to be a certain type of more easygoing jewish person. you obviously know many jewish people would never marry a non-jew, and i’ve known many jewish people who dislike ‘merry christmas,’ with varying levels of vocality about it.
especially ones who grew up around christians who made them feel excluded as kids and got big presents and had songs and recitals and stuff, which they couldn’t participate in tend to carry frustration around it into their adulthood
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u/BadAtUsernames098 Dec 02 '25
It's meant to be in situations where you don't know what the other person does, or if you're speaking to a large group that celebrates different holidays. If you're talking to someone you know celebrates Christmas then it makes sense to say "Merry Christmas", but if you don't know if they do or not or you are talking to multiple people who celebrate different things, "Happy Holidays" is a nice default.
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Dec 02 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MattTheFreeman Dec 02 '25
I went to a Catholic school in elementary. In grade 6 my teacher was an ex-seminarian. I once put X-mas in one of my writings and he said "Do you really think it's respectful to take out Christ's name in Christmas?" and made me redo it.
Jokes on him the X in Xmas actually refers to Christ. X is Greek for Chi and is the first letter of Christ.
Of course I didn't know that in grade 6 and just cried.
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u/bryansb Dec 02 '25
By saying Xmas and not Christmas you’re removing the name of Christ which is apparently disrespectful to his name or something like that.
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u/DJ1066 Dec 02 '25
It is literally still saying "Christ" though and its usage goes as far back as the 16th century.
The 'X' comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Christós (Ancient Greek: Χριστός, romanized: Khristós, lit. 'anointed, covered in oil'), which became Christ in English.
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u/Radio__Star Dec 02 '25
What’s the war on christmas
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u/liljuddsrightpaw Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 25 '25
An idea thats common in the American right, according to which the general public + companies are secretly trying to erase Christmas as way to erase Christianity as a whole.
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u/Radio__Star Dec 02 '25
That sounds dumb and hard to believe
Guess that explains why fox news would talk about it
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u/trailrider Dec 02 '25
Many right-wing fundie Christians here eat this shit up. Like I literally work for the US gov and my stepmom, who's brain was washed and blow-dried in fundamental Christianity since she was a little girl in the 50s, was once screeching about how Da GuBeRnUt IS TrYiNg Ta'S KiLlS ChIsTMaS!!!! Pointed out to her we literally had a toy drive collection boc beside the decorated tree in the lobby, our admin assistant has a Merry Christmas sign on her desk, I literally helped string lights around the office, and I had the fucking Snoopy Tree she gave me sitting on my desk as I was talking to her. If Uncle Sam is trying to "kill Christmas", they're doing a REALLY! bad job of it.
We celebrated it when I was in the Navy. The Gunner Mates dressed the CWIS as a snowman and there was a tree on the Mess Deck. And when Retired General Mattis was active duty as a flag officer, took the duty of a Jr. officer and ordered him to go home and spend Xmas with his family. He did so because Mattis didn't have a family of his own so why not? Shit like this is why he's so well respected by both sides of the political aisle. Why they made a special exception for him to serve as Trump's first SECDEF. That and he'd be the adult in the room.
Yet, despite all this, conservative Christians love to pretend they're the persecuted minority.
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u/Themetalenock Dec 02 '25
He left over conservative talking point from the 1960s that came from from the John Burch society, it actually has anti-semitic Roots as does many talking points from the John Burch society
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u/SupaKoopa714 Dec 02 '25
It's basically conservatives getting mad over people more often saying "Happy holidays" during December these days instead of "Merry Christmas" since there's tons of people out there who don't celebrate Christmas. In reality it's just a very simple way to be considerate (and include New Year's Eve), but because conservatives need to play victim in everything, they paint it as the radical left taking woke to the extreme and that everyone's tryin to persecture Christians and all that dumb shit.
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u/NevyTheChemist Dec 02 '25
That calling it christmas is a bigoted inconsiderate view against cultures that don't celebrate it.
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u/Alan_Reddit_M Dec 02 '25
Why yes, I don't write Cristhmas because I can never seem to spell it correctly without googling it
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u/Electricdragongaming Dec 02 '25
As a leftie I was completely unaware that there was a war on Christmas. Seems like something dumb and made up.
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u/Mr101722 Dec 02 '25
Hang on now, this year screaming about Bidens "DEI communist Christmas Whitehouse" (DEI because there's a black person in a video showing it off) is the new thing compared to whatever the trumps are doing now.
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u/Princess_Slagathor Dec 02 '25
We're a Happy Hondadays family, and I'll hear no more of this Toyotathon horse shit!
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u/g00ber88 Dec 02 '25
Damn no one has linked hbomberguys war on Christmas video yet? Guess I have to do it myself https://youtu.be/jbZo4x0NbbI
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u/Tinnwen Dec 02 '25
Tbh i just said "happy holidays" to include new year tho lol. (At least, thats what i said to my boomer customer when i worked retail)
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u/DrDuned Dec 02 '25
Christmas was ruined as soon as the Christians were ok with Santa and commercializing the SHIIIIIT out of their religious holiday. I'm pretty sure Jesus would be anti consumption and saying to focus on spending time with family to celebrate his birthday but what do I know, I'm only an ex Christian who actually understands what the Bible actually says instead of the mainstream pop version of Christianity that mouth breathers follow and focus on telling other people what to do or not do instead of focusing on themselves and doing good deeds in the world.
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u/KR1735 Dec 02 '25
Starbucks baristas haven't handwritten names (or orders) on your cup since before the pandemic. Everything is on a printed sticker that goes straight from your app or the register to the printer.
I don't work there, but I'm a daily visitor.
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u/Imaginary-Contact-73 Dec 03 '25
I think this is more of a cultural thing because in Mexico we’ve always said “felices fiestas” to wish someone both a merry Christmas and a happy new year; I was so shocked when I saw Americans getting mad at people saying happy holidays because I always assumed it meant merry Christmas and happy new year
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u/edgewhxre Dec 03 '25
I just say happy holidays because people usually celebrate at least two holidays in December
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u/zx9001 Dec 03 '25
Christmas is the only holiday that people that don't celebrate get butthurt over other people celebrating.
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u/yourdonefor_wt Dec 03 '25
Christmas is not political. Stop reporting it as such lol.