• smeg@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    Completely trivial point, but a non-USAist I don’t think I’ll ever stop finding the phrase “the Holiday Season” weird. If you mean Christmas because you want people to buy it as a Christmas present, then just say Christmas! I guess it’s to be non-religious but I just find it funny to say “the holiday season” to mean winter when the season that everyone goes on holiday is summer.

    • Omegamanthethird@beehaw.orgOP
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      1 year ago

      In the US, there are multiple holidays people get together for. Halloween (to a lesser degree), Thanksgiving, Christmas (or Hanukkah), New Years. Extended families will often get together multiple times for these and then not see each other again until the next year. Thanksgiving really kicks off the retail season with black Friday, but there’s also a lot of time off during the winter time from school and work.

      It really is a season with Christmas at the center of it. A lot of our “Christmas” songs don’t even mention Christmas. It’s just songs about winter.

      • smeg@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        That much makes sense, but when it’s companies releasing products they hope will be bought as Christmas presents then it’s just odd to hear them skirting round the word “Christmas”. Unless you guys buy each other PS5s for new year?

        • blindsight@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          It’s also somewhat inclusive of Lunar New Year and Diwali. More broadly, it’s a public recognition that not everyone celebrates Christmas to make it clear they’re accepting of diversity.

          Maybe it’s the Canadian in me, but I don’t wish anyone a “Merry Christmas” unless maybe if I specifically know they celebrate Christmas; I almost always say “Happy Holidays!”

          • smeg@feddit.uk
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            1 year ago

            Yeah it makes sense, just sounds odd. Maybe it’s because here in Britain Christmas is kind of a thing for everyone almost entirely independent of religion. Cultural differences and all that.

    • mooseknee@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      In a lot of countries (Northern Hemisphere) Summer is the holiday season, but that has never been my experience in the US. So it might not be as strange from that perspective.