The backlash was loud, almost immediate, and it didn’t take long for headlines to flare across social media and news outlets. Yet even louder than the noise of critics was the deafening silence of store clerks, many of whom had been trained to avoid mentioning Christmas altogether. For years, the traditional greeting of “Merry Christmas” seemed to vanish from the commercial landscape, replaced with a bland, carefully neutral “Happy Holidays,” a phrase designed to avoid offending anyone. The shift was subtle at first—small signs, muted displays, background music stripped of carols—but over time, the absence became a presence of its own. Shoppers noticed. Communities noticed. And quietly, a cultural debate over words, faith, and tradition had taken root in the aisles of America’s biggest stores.
