Happy Holidays doesn’t cut it. Why Merry Christmas is the season’s greeting | Opinion

Forgive me if I’m wrong, dear friends, but I have a problem with the politically correct greeting during this time of the year.

Instead of acknowledging each holiday of the season for what it is, we have adopted the trend of wrapping all the holidays of the season with the inscription: “Happy Holidays.”

This shouldn’t be.

Let me explain. Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, which starts Monday, and will be celebrated through Dec. 26, is an important holiday to people of the Jewish faith. It celebrates Jewish survival. So, I will not say “Happy holiday” to my Jewish friends as they celebrate Hanukkah. To them, I will say it like I feel it: “Happy Hanukkah, my friends.”

Likewise, as a Christian who knows the real meaning of Christmas, I will always say, for as long as I am alive, “Have a Blessed and/or Merry Christmas.” To me, wrapping up all the holidays of the season into a one-size-fits-all greeting like “Happy Holidays” just doesn’t cut it.

Oh, I know some of you are probably thinking that I am just nit-picking over a small matter. Well, it isn’t a small matter to me, and to a lot of other folks either.

Hanukkah, like Christmas, is a sacred holiday of faith. Hanukkah tells the story of victory over oppression. So does Christmas: Jesus was born to break the chains of oppression, giving us freedom.

Christmas stands for everything that is bright and beautiful. And I don’t mean just the bright lights and the decorated homes and businesses. Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, who brought with Him the gifts of peace and goodwill and hope.

Yet, in today’s world, we somehow have forgotten the gifts that Jesus brought to earth. Instead, we have found ways to celebrate Christmas without celebrating Jesus. But without Jesus, there would be no Christmas. Like it or not, Christmas is a time when we should take seriously the passage from the Bible, “… Peace on earth and good will to men.”

I realize that not everyone believes that Jesus is the Son of God; that perhaps He was only just a good man or a good prophet. But while I respect you if that is how you believe, I find a deep settled comfort in believing the Bible and the prophet Isaiah, who told of Jesus’ coming centuries before his birth. Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14, tells the news of the coming birth of Jesus in this manner:

“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

And again, in Isaiah 9, verse 6:

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

Over the years, I have watched as Christmas has become so commercialized that many people seem to have forgotten the real reason for the celebration. It has become more about decorations and parties and gingerbread houses. Yet, in spite of the commercializing of this sacred holiday, many of us still remember the real reason for the season and will act accordingly.

So, to my Jewish friends, I say: “Happy Hanukkah!”

And to my Christian friends who still remember and believe, I say: “Have a Blessed and Merry Christmas.”

And to everyone, may the God of peace rain down His love and good will on you during this holy season.

Miami grad gets Emmy nomination

Nadine and Kevin Roach got an early Christmas gift when their youngest daughter Christell received an Emmy nomination at the 2022 Suncoast Emmy Awards event on Dec. 10 at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando.

Christell was nominated for her work in collaboration with WLRN, “The Breaths of our Skin” which was recorded as a part of a Black History Month storytelling project and aired during the screening of “When Liberty Burns” (the story of the McDuffie riots in Miami in 1980).

“Because her poem was aired on television with PBS, she became eligible and was nominated later in the year for the Emmy, much to my surprise,” said Nadine Roach, Christell’s mother.

Although she did not win the Emmy, Christell is a winner to all who know her. An outstanding poet/performer, she is the youngest of five and is a graduate of the Miami Arts Charter School.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and African American studies from Emory University and earned her MFA in creative writing at the University of Miami.

She has been published by the Academy of American Poets. POETRY Magazine, Obsidian Literary Journal, Scalawag Magazine, The Miami Rail and SWIMM Magazine.

Christell is now a 2022-2024 Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and is working on her first book of poetry, “Bluesing.”