Christmas Wordings Substituted
Christmas wordings were substituted by non-religious phrases on countless occasions. Phrases range from “seasonal greetings” to “may your celebration be under a good star” to "white seasons songs" in all European countries. A very interesting report has reached us from an employee of a global corporation based in Switzerland.
Submission, Dec. 21: “Dear Friends, I work in a global corporation based in Switzerland. These days all employees are getting traditional greetings. Unfortunately, they do not contain "Merry Christmas" any more but e.g. "Best wishes for a safe and healthy holiday season!" on a postcard with a hybrid of St Clause (Coca-Cola-like) and Buddha in a typical yoga position. In parallel many already set up Christmas trees disappeared from our offices and being replaced by a big single tree in the middle of the campus.What is going on?
According to the values and behaviours of our corporation we all are obliged to respect cultural, national and religious differences of our colleagues and that is why we are encouraged e.g. to send greetings to India due to Diwali festival, to Israel due to Hanukkah, to USA due to Thanksgiving Day or to Emirates due to the End of Ramadan. So, why in the company where probably more than half of the employees are Christians do not we wish each other Merry Christmas any more? Our colleagues from India have no problem to wish us "Merry Christmas" or even "Happy Birthday Baby Jesus".
I sent these questions to our CEO and Global Corporate Communication Officer but have got any answer so far.
I am from Poland where we experienced communism for 44 years. Although the communists tried to replace Santa Claus by Jack Frost (and did not managed), they respected Christmas Trees, two free Christmas days, Christmas carols and post cards with Baby Jesus, etc. And now I live in Switzerland - mainly a Christian country - which is for me also the icon of the successful coexistence of various religions and languages (e.g. on Basel Marktplatz both Christmas Tree and Hanukkah Menorah stood together for the last few days) and... now I feel to be discriminated! This is just a giggle of history...” Anna