海角大神

鈥橳is the season for holiday cards, and every time I open one from my English relatives, I feel a little bit of a shock. 鈥淗appy Christmas!鈥� they proclaim. I understand using 鈥淗appy holidays鈥� and 鈥淪eason鈥檚 greetings鈥� if you want to wish people well but aren鈥檛 sure if they celebrate Christmas, but to me, if you鈥檙e sending an actual Christmas card, it must say 鈥渕erry.鈥� 鈥淗appy Christmas鈥� just sounds ... wrong.

Why is it overwhelmingly 鈥淢erry Christmas鈥� in America, but 鈥淗appy Christmas鈥� for many British people?聽 The answer has to do with the connotations of these adjectives, which appear at first glance to be synonyms.

Both happy and merry can mean 鈥渃haracterized by pleasure, joyous.鈥� But happy tends toward quiet contentment and merry toward revelry. Making merry includes festive activities such as dancing, eating rich foods, and playing games with friends. Merry can be a euphemism for 鈥渄runk,鈥� though this use was often considered vulgar in the 18th century. In the Middle Ages, Christmas was firmly in the merry category. It was primarily a time of celebration, 12 days of feasting, singing, and other entertainments. The default term seems to have been 鈥淢erry Christmas,鈥� as in the old carol 鈥淲e Wish You a Merry Christmas.鈥澛� 聽

In the 17th century, Christmas was neither merry nor happy 鈥� it was illegal. Puritans in England and in America banned the holiday as licentious, a non-biblical holdover from pagan times. Christmas was to be a day of regular work and an occasion to remember God, not fill the belly.

By the 19th century, Christmas had regained its status as a popular holiday, but with its riotous element curtailed. In Charles Dickens鈥檚 1843 classic 鈥淎 Christmas Carol,鈥� for example, Christmas is mildly merry 鈥� the characters look forward to the pleasures of their Christmas pudding 鈥� but the holiday is also meant to be a time for self-reflection and charity.聽 Dickens鈥檚 characters use the phrase 鈥淢erry Christmas,鈥� as did the first Christmas card, which depicts a prosperous family framed by images of people feeding and clothing poor people. 聽

It would probably be 鈥淢erry Christmas鈥� to all now, if not for the stubbornness of the British upper classes. They clung to the idea that there was something vulgar about the word and the state of being merry, even in its milder incarnation.聽

When King George V gave the first royal Christmas message in 1932, he wished his subjects a 鈥淗appy Christmas,鈥� and Queen Elizabeth II continues to do so every year. Perhaps as a result of the royal preference, happy overtook merry in Britain during the 1930s, although merry is making a comeback there today.

So to those who celebrate, Happy Merry Christmas!