Holiday Greetings: An Etiquette Guide

[Tom Hilton here, from If I Ran the Zoo. Because we've begun the Most Baby Jesusest Time of the Year, and because I think the message bears repeating, and (most of all) because I'm a lazy bastard, I'm reprinting a piece I posted last year around this time.]

It's not about politics, despite the desperate efforts of scum like O'Reilly and Gibson to make it so, and it's not about religion. It's about courtesy.

Here, then, is a simple, handy guide to the etiquette of holiday greetings.

1. If you celebrate Christmas, and you know that the person(s) to whom you are speaking (all) celebrate Christmas, then by all means say 'Merry Christmas'.
2. If you celebrate Christmas, and the person(s) to whom you are speaking does/do not (or you aren't sure), then the polite thing to do is to use a generic seasonal salutation such as 'Happy Holidays'.
3. If you do not celebrate Christmas, and the person(s) to whom you are speaking also does/do not (or you aren't sure), then a generic greeting is the obvious choice.
4. If you do not celebrate Christmas, and the person(s) you are addressing does/do, you can go either way: if you feel it would be insincere to use a salutation referencing a holiday you do not celebrate, then use a generic greeting; on the other hand, you may want to make the addressee(s) feel special by using their particular holidy, in which case 'Merry Christmas' (or or whatever particular holiday they celebrate but you do not) is the best choice.
5. When in doubt as to what to say, err on the side of consideration for the feelings of the addressee(s).
6. As a recipient of any kind of holiday greetings, err on the side of not taking offense; they are nearly always intended as a kindness.
7. Either way, this isn't about you. (This is the basic precept of all courtesy: it isn't about you.) It's about consideration for others. Only the most boorish and inconsiderate would use a holiday greeting as an excuse to assert the dominance of his/her chosen religious tradition. The point of a holiday greeting is to do a verbal kindness to some other person, period.

I hope this helps.