Political correctness is the latest fad nowadays. You’re now supposed to say everything exactly how it’s supposed to be said, otherwise you’ll offend someone. So say I wrote an article about cheap jewelry for Christmas. I accidentally leave out a few letters and it slips past the spell check, so now everybody in school thinks I’m an anti-Semite.

There are several holiday celebrations around this time of year, and it would take too much time and too many words to name every single one of them, so to maintain political correctness, I haven’t named any of them. I personally celebrate Christmas, not to offend any other groups of people. But you shouldn’t be able to say “Merry Christmas!” to everybody, it’s just too offensive. If you say it to someone who doesn’t celebrate Christmas, they’ll become depressed and feel that you think their beliefs are false. If you say it to someone who does celebrate Christmas, but someone who doesn’t celebrate hears you, they’ll feel like you’re ganging up against their holiday. You simply can’t say it, because we all know “Merry Christmas” actually means “I’m right and if you celebrate anything but Christmas, you suck and your beliefs are lies.”

People who don’t celebrate Christmas might not know much about Santa Claus. So you have a bunch of kids terrified that in the middle of the night some fat man in a red suit will be coming down their chimney. And once he finds out they don’t celebrate Christmas, they have no idea what he’ll do! Who knows what that sparkly reindeer food you put on the lawn is made of? As far as they know it’s made out of the kids who don’t celebrate Christmas! Santa’s suit could’ve been white, now it’s just red with blood! They lie in bed listening for the foreboding clickity-clack of reindeer hooves on the ceiling while visions of fearsome sugar plums dance in their heads. That’s exactly what children need, to act like they just saw Paranormal Activity on Christmas.

So why should I be able to publicize my beliefs? I mean it’s not like we have a first amendment or anything that protects what I can say or believe. I mean of course I can’t just assume everyone celebrates the same thing I do, but technically when I say Merry Christmas to someone, isn’t it politically incorrect for them to say they don’t believe in Christmas? Apparently political correctness means not expressing any opinions just in case they might offend someone else. So from now on let’s just agree with everything anybody says forever.

Nah, that would be boring. It would be much better if everyone just said exactly what they meant to say when they meant to say it. So if you celebrate Christmas wish anyone you want a Merry Christmas just because you want to spread the cheer. If they’re offended about it, then they obviously have too much stock in what other people say anyway. If you don’t care what other people think, you’ll be able to have a happy holiday.