Maybe it’s just me. But I can’t get anyone to tell me “Merry Christmas” this Christmas … I mean … holiday season.

Years after Donald Trump promised to get everyone saying the time-honored greeting again, I’ve barely heard it (outside of my very traditional place of employment).

The other day, I ran into a friend in town that I know, without a doubt, celebrates Christmas and knows that I celebrate Christmas, too. Here it was — it was finally going to happen for me, I thought. “Merry Christmas!” I cheerily offered. “Happy holidays!” came back the reply.

Of course, it’s seemingly impossible to get a “Merry Christmas” out of a sales representative anywhere in America.

TV networks will run hours-long blocks of Christmas movies and shows, and then in the commercial breaks after Scrooge imbibes the Christmas spirit or Linus recites from the Gospel of Luke, wish their viewers, “Happy holidays.”

I’m half expecting to go to church for the Christmas service and not be able to wring a “Merry Christmas” out of anyone there, either.

The disconnect between our reluctance to wish people a merry Christmas and the sheer ubiquity of the holiday is vast. As of 2019, Gallup found that 93% of Americans celebrate Christmas.

The number, which has been roughly the same over the last quarter century, holds true across all major demographic subgroups. Even 85% of people who say religion isn’t important to them celebrate Christmas.

This means you could walk down most streets in America telling everyone you meet, “Merry Christmas,” without running into anyone for whom the greeting is inapposite. Yet, the phrase is out of style.

It’s a truly fine greeting. The word “merry” is old-fashioned without being completely dated, and has developed an almost exclusive identification with Christmas. It evokes all the merry-making associated with this time of year, from sledding to chestnuts on the open fire.

On the other hand, all that “happy holidays” has going for it is banal alliteration. And what “holidays” are we taking about?

We don’t put up Christmas trees, buy gifts for families and friends, display mangers, travel to be with loved ones, sing Christmas songs and watch endless Christmas programming on TV to celebrate the “holidays.”

None of this is about New Year’s, or looking further into January, Martin Luther King Day.

Besides, should New Year’s Day really be bootstrapped up to equal importance with Christmas as “the holidays”? New Year’s is about noisemakers, champagne and college football, while Christmas, for those of us believers, is about the birth of our Savior.

One of these things is not like the other.

Of course, there’s always the chance of religious minorities and non-believers being mis-holidayed, but reasonable people should be able to overlook that, assuming it’s not done out of malice. This, after all, is an overwhelmingly Christian country, where Christmas has a massive culture imprint. It simply can’t be avoided.

I’m not making a new complaint. The former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly warned of “a war of Christmas” years ago.

“War” was a little strong. It’s not as though holidays aren’t targeted, though. Columbus Day was long ago kneecapped, thrown in the trunk of a car, and dumped in a scrap yard somewhere in New Jersey. Thanksgiving is taking incoming from ideological opponents, and over time, July 4 will be pressured by Juneteenth.

But Christmas is too big to fail. Americans will spend nearly a trillion dollars during the Christmas season, more than our annual defense budget. That’s not the point of the holiday, of course, even if Christmas has gotten more secular over time. All the spending — the gifts, the travel, the eggnog — is a function of a holiday with profound religious and personal meaning that is deeply embedded in the country’s psyche and traditions.

As for as I’m concerned, old St. Nick had it right when he said, as the closing line from the famous poem is often rendered: “Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!”

© 2023 by King Features Syndicate