SAYING HAPPY HOLIDAYS IS ANOTHER WAY OF SAYING MERRY CHRISTMAS

If you read the title, you read English. The concepts that words label don't change to suit the needs of anyone. However, when enough misuse a word over time, mistakenly, many believe that word has taken on new meaning. One of those words is holiday.

Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard van Honthorst (1620)

Holiday is the Old English word haligdæg. To Old English speakers the word meant Christian holy day, consecrated day, religious anniversary; day of rest. To Old English speakers holiday had no other meaning.

When Old English speakers wanted to speak of other people and their religion, Old English speakers would say demonym adjectives prefacing the word holiday.

To English speakers, other people and their other religions do not have holidays. They have days of significance to their religion.

Americans came to say the phrase happy holidays as a Christmastime greeting, which the sellers of Camel cigarettes introduced in advertising to Americans in 1937.