At times

At times I feel like I'm lecturing a 4th grade civics class. "Here's why we have habeus corpus, here's why the Bill of Rights protects us against unreasonable search and seizure," and so forth, I scribble away.

As we approach Christmas, one thing will be on everyone's mind, why do people say "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas"?

While we're discussing things as fourth graders will, there are two reasons.

First, it isn't Christmas yet.

Second, Christmas isn't the only holiday occurring right around now.

On December 25th, I will greet everyone with a hearty "Merry Christmas." During Hanukkah, I expect people to greet me with "Happy Hannukah." Same for Kwanzaa and Eid.

The rest of the time, we'll just do the generic thing.

There. We're done. Go to recess.

Update: Thanks to Tom Andersen for reminding me of Festivus, and I remembered Diwali all on my own.