Happy Holiday was featured in the film Holiday Inn (1942). The characters played by Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds sing it during the opening of the Inn. It was written by the same guy who wrote White Christmas, Irving Berlin.
We’re coming up on that time of year where those on the extreme right of the political spectrum start their usual tripe about the political left’s so-called “War on Christmas”. Of course there is no war, but when has that ever stopped them from making outrageous claims? (It primed them for Trump’s outrageous claims.)
The first time I remember hearing the song Happy Holiday I was probably around 6 years old. Well over 50 years ago. So long before this Trumped up idea that saying Happy Holiday was somehow unAmerican. Because of Irving Berlin and every singer who has sung any of his Christmas songs we have several phrases even more ingrained in our lexicon.
Much like “Merry Christmas,” it turns out that “Happy Holidays” also has religious roots. Both are derived from Old English: Christmas comes from “Cristes Maesse,” or the Mass of Christ, the first usage of which (in 1038) described the mass held to commemorate Christ’s birth. As for “holiday,” the word emerged in the 1500s as a replacement of the earlier medieval word “haliday,” which itself had supplanted the Old English “haligdæg,” meaning holy day.
Recently, an investigation into the history of the phrase “Happy Holidays” as a seasonal greeting in the United States by self-described history nerd Jeremy Aldrich turned up its usage as early as 1863, in the Philadelphia Inquirer. By the middle of the 20th century, the phrase was well established in popular usage, as shown in a study of ads run by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in Carolina Magazine from 1935 to 1942 to encourage giving the gift of tobacco.
So hunker down and load up with some facts to combat the Rights attack on how we express ourselves during the coming Holiday Season.
Happy Holidays!