Christmas as a word comes from the old English phrase of Christ’s mass and has been used in English for almost 1,000 years. But as with Christmas Eve, it was also John Wycliffe who used the word for the first time. It was in the 1500s that Merry Christmas was used as a greeting, finding fame with the carol We Wish you a Merry Christmas. There are two competitors for the man who hated the holiday period the most. One of them was Scrooge, featured in Dickens A Christmas Carol (published just in time for for the 1843 season) in which the hero states that almost “every idiot … goes around with Merry Christmas on his lips”. The other one is of course the Grinch, invented by Dr. Seuss in 1957.
With the meaning of “merry” having connotations of having too much to drink, it became more politically correct to talk about a Happy Christmas, even though this phase goes back to 1707. To be even more politically correct, it is possible to take out the religious origin and wish simply Happy Holidays or even Season’s Greetings.
So however you are celebrating, EVS Translations wishes you a good day, a Happy Christmas, a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Season’s Greetings. Enjoy.
