What about Festivus?

I've been taking the ongoing kerfuffle over "Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas" with a rather large grain of salt and a healthy dose of skepticism. The whole thing stinks of astroturf, in spirit if not in actuality, and I really wish Christmas were a much smaller-scale holiday without the spirit of enforced, coerced cheeriness that so many people often seem to demand from everyone else on the holiday. I found the bit in the otherwise delightful Elf in which James Caan's character saves Christmas because he joins in the Christmas carols! And he really means it! And it changes him for the better! to ring profoundly false.

Of course, Bad Santa is my favorite Christmas movie, so what do I know?

At any rate, I hadn't planned to comment on the matter one way or the other, but I want to point out these two recent pieces. The first is from Virgina Postrel:

Why criticize merchants for including all their customers in wishes for a happy holiday season? The holidays do, after all, stretch from Thanksgiving to New Year's, both nonsectarian holidays. "Happy Holidays" includes Christmas, for those who celebrate it. But it also includes holidays we all share, as well as some others only a minority observe.

When you extend these greetings, are you wishing people happiness? Or affirming your Christianity? Do you want people who don't celebrate Christmas to be happy (or merry)? Or do you want to make them at least mildly uncomfortable? The answers will determine what you say.

And this editorial from my local paper, the Star-Tribune, nails it:

What must be dealt with is the misplaced martyrdom of the complainers. Yes, there have been silly incidents, particularly in public schools where Christmas symbols, songs and stories were discouraged while elements of Ramadan, Hanukkah and Kwanza were elevated. There was no need for Maplewood, N.J., to pull Christmas carols -- even the instrumental versions -- from school performances, or for Denver to exclude a religious float from its Christmas parade. Well-meaning people occasionally go overboard in trying not to offend minority cultures.
[...]
We are puzzled that those professing faith seem faithless in the power of the Christmas story to overcome whatever small slights occasionally appear. Indeed, it seems a nice gesture to wish "Happy Holidays" to those you don't know well, while reserving "Merry Christmas" for the festival's deeper meaning. It seems a hard task to celebrate a baby's humble birth with a chip on your shoulder.