Thanks for the links, Toddson.

Taitz Fined $20,000

I want to claim emotional damages simply from hearing her voice.

They were pleased when a friend who dropped me off from college said, "Happy holidays!" to them rather than "Merry Christmas," though.

I think it's different when it's coming from someone who knows you. I don't care what a store clerk says to me, but I will get a bit "Buh?" if a friend who has never acknowledged any Jewish holidays wishes me a Merry Christmas.

In elementary school, they had us sing, "We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a jolly winter, we wish you a happy Chanukah, and a happy new year." Even in first grade, we all thought that was dumb. It's a Christmas song, just let it be a Christmas song. Other religions can go in other songs, or in no songs, or in whatever songs the members of those religions want to be in.

I know people here are only sounding off about having religion imposed upon them, but some Christians don't do that, and I get tired of hearing that we all do.

I didn't mean to generalize. I don't think that all Christians believe that non-believers are bad people.

Besides those impersonal greetings are all about tone anyways, as the "edgy" college kids who slip by "Welcome to Taco Bell...may I fuck your mother today?" find out. Phonebanking gets like that, too. No matter how awesome your candidate/ issue is by the end of the day, it's totally "Would you like fries with that?" (No, I never ask to fuck their mothers...around here, that would just confirm too much anti-Dem prejudice.)

Srsly. If I had Xanax, I'd take some right now. Why should the sound of my coworker (and FRIEND, ffs) tidying her cubicle make me want to go STABBITY STABBITY STAB?

And insisting that a "Happy Holidays" given several weeks after Chanukah is over actually includes Chanukah is just silly.

Well, people say it from Thanksgiving until New Years. I don't think it has a running check-list. Though that would be funny. "Happy Holidays! Well, except for Thanksgiving. And Chanukah, that's done. Or is it half done? Today is, what? The 19th? OK, so it still includes Solstice. Happy Soulstice, maybe half of Chanukah, Christmas (Eve and Day), Boxing Day, Kwanza, Kings Day/Orthodox Christmas, New Years (Eve and Day). Here's your change."

"Happy Holidays! Well, except for Thanksgiving. And Chanukah, that's done. Or is it half done? Today is, what? The 19th? OK, so it still includes Solstice. Happy Soulstice, maybe half of Chanukah, Christmas (Eve and Day), Boxing Day, Kwanza, Kings Day/Orthodox Christmas, New Years (Eve and Day). Here's your change."

About mid-way through next week I am going to go into a shop and say that. Minus the 'here's your change'.

In Seattle, this year’s signs say “Millions are good without God.”

We have one of those in Chicago on my bus route. More or less - I think it says "Good without God? Millions are." I like seeing it there.

I've definitely seen the burn in hell variety of god signs, mostly from the freeway in country areas.

I'm with Trudy on Happy Holidays as a catch-all - it's a six week period incorporating quite a lot of different holidays so I don't get the issue.

Have we discussed the atheist ad campaign here? [link]

Those billboards led to death threats in Cincinnati, and I am not even kidding.

We're so open-minded, it brings a tear to my eye. It's one big love-fest for the atheists, non-white folks, gay people, and trans* people!

I swear that stores and other places for the general public have said "happy holidays" for as long as I can remember, and this idea that there's a sudden concerted attack on Christmas is made up out of whole cloth.

I am an atheist who has an emotional attachment to the idea of Christmas as embodied in A Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life and the "Yes, Virginia" editorial. I'm also fond of the music. I think there is some human need for festival at the darkest time of the year.

As an aside, I thought I could not loathe Macy's more than I did when they took away the Rich's and Marshall Field's store names, but I found I had more loathing in me when they co-opted "Yes, Virginia." I may go tomorrow and get the $10 gift certificate they're giving to people named Virginia, though.