This time of year, people all around us are getting ready for the holiday season. 90% of Americans celebrate Christmas. That is a lot of people celebrating one particular holiday. I personally don’t know anyone who celebrates other winter holidays like Kwanzaa or Hanukkah but it is important to know that there are people who do celebrate other things than Christmas or the holiday you celebrate. All holidays are important whether they are to you or not, someone out there celebrates it. The holiday season is for joy and family, whether that means Christmas to you or it means celebrating three kings day. No matter what, all holidays are cool and should be respected whether you celebrate them or not. 

 Although when you go to the store you tend to just see Christmas decor and Christmas cards, but that’s not all that’s out there. In the past, store signs would read Merry Christmas, but not much other than that. Now you see signs saying ‘Happy Holidays’ or ‘Season’s Greetings.’ You may not have noticed or even realized anything wrong with this before because you celebrate Christmas or it just never made you think about much. But, because there are so many more things people celebrate other than Christmas, this is really nice. For example, imagine most people celebrating one holiday and when you went out places all you saw was signs talking or mentioning that holiday and no one ever recognized the holiday you celebrate. That would kind of stink right? Well that’s how a lot of people feel. During the holidays people tend to just say merry Christmas without thinking about it. Really the best thing to say is happy holidays. This way your not being rude or making someone upset and are including everyone. I understand you wouldn’t want you to intentionally offend someone but you could but it’s an unfortunate possibility. 

Because there are so many people around us celebrating the big holiday of Christmas, we sometimes forget about others. It may make sense to you that if Christmas is more widely celebrated they that’s why stores are filled with more Christmas decor than other winter holiday decorations. I feel like it would make more sense if all holidays are represented equally. Here’s the problem though. If more people celebrate Christmas and they wanted the excitement to be fair, then what might happen is that they would lose money. There are less people who don’t celebrate Christmas than those that do. So if stores stopped the same amount of all holiday decorations then they wouldn’t have enough of the more popularly celebrated holiday items and then the less celebrated holiday items wouldn’t be making as much money because there’s not as many people buy them. This leads to us forgetting that there are other holidays out there because we don’t see them out in stores or on signs, so all we remember is Christmas or the holiday we celebrate. That stinks because other holidays are just as cool and important to the people who celebrate them as Christmas. People who celebrate Christmas in the U.S don’t tend to see the lack of inclusion because there is never a shortage of Christmas here in store. 

No winter holiday is more important than the next. Everyone believes in different things and respecting that is especially important during the holidays. Not only because the holidays are supposed to be a time of joy but because when you do the little things to make everyone feel included it makes the holidays that much better. Next time you pass people in public try to keep in mind to say happy holidays. You don’t know what that person celebrates and if people always tell you Merry Christmas or happy Hanukkah and you don’t celebrate that holiday it makes you get upset after a while because that’s not who you are or what you celebrate. Over all, the holidays are meant for joy and for everyone to enjoy no matter who you are. This is why nowadays you have to be open minded and learn that all sorts of people celebrate different occasions. This coming year will be a good one and I hope you all will enjoy its as much as you enjoyed the passing one. Happy holidays.