MERRY CHRISTMAS to All! ..........NOT "Happy Holidays"

I'll let you figure it out my 'Jewish' cousin (by marriage) is fair skinned, blue eyed, blond hair, born in Austria, descended from many generations of people all living in that sort of area of Europe, identifying as Jewish, although many not practising Judaism, and she is happy to be called Jewish. She was brought up Christian was always very active in the Christian Church became a Deacon(?). I can use the word race if you like but the racial use of Jew usually implies peoples originating in the Roman areas around Palestine, birth of Jesus territory (of Arabic appearance), which as far back as I know her ancestry, she doesn't. Although quite possibly some of her ancient ancestors moved from there. You or I could convert to Judaism any time, but it wouldn't make us Jewish by descent or ethnically Jewish or racially Jewish or whatever term you would like to use. Belonging to the Jewish religion (or not) is separate to 'being Jewish', was the point I was trying to make. Badly apparently.

so you chosen to ignore the ethnic groups as used by the govt. in the last census ? which was the point I was making. Inlining from the link, below*. Note something about that ? No mention of religion. You can be Indian or Pakistani, but not Indian/Muslim or Indian/Hindu or Indian/Sikh. There is a reason for that: further down the same page: There has been an ethnicity question in the Census since 1991. It has been updated at every new Census since then. There are separate questions in the Census about national identity, religion and language.

So as I originally said, while some definitions of ethnicity very clearly include religion (just look the word up in a dictionary), others do not. 

In this case, the official record of ethnic group from the national census does not, and instead treats Religion as an orthogonal characteristic/attribute. Of course, if you want to personally identify your "ethnicity" as Indian/Hindu as a combined thing, one is entirely welcome to do so.  No doubt especially in this era of 'self-identification' :-)

But usage of the term Ethnicity to identify with cultural and genetic lineage separately from religion, is an acceptable and common norm, and is officially recognised by embodiment in the UK National Census. And frankly, there isn't really another good single term which you could use in its place.

*List of ethnic groups

The main changes to the 2021 Census of England and Wales, compared with the previous Census, were:



the ‘Roma’ group was added under the ‘White’ ethnic group

a write-in response was added for the ‘Black African’ ethnic group

The ethnic groups were:



Asian or Asian British

Indian

Pakistani

Bangladeshi

Chinese

Any other Asian background

Black, Black British, Caribbean or African

Caribbean

African

Any other Black, Black British, or Caribbean background

Mixed or multiple ethnic groups

White and Black Caribbean

White and Black African

White and Asian

Any other Mixed or multiple ethnic background

White

English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British

Irish

Gypsy or Irish Traveller

Roma

Any other White background

Other ethnic group

Arab

Any other ethnic group

Posh! Happiest … wow!



…. 🤔 it makes me wonder the receivers of their cards are not “happiest”

(they're 'merkins, bless.)

Americans.  Where Christmas is slowly being eradicated, as per the card you've just received.  Aren't you iilustrating ozboy's point, that you labelled ridiculous?  

"happiest Holidays" is what's ridiculous here. 

I'm certain the UK majority still prefer to be greeted with Merry Christmas or Happy Christmas.  That doesn't seem an unreasonable ask at Christmas time (but obviously for the contrarians here it is!).  While "happiest Holidays" is not offensive per se, it just comes across as daft to water down the occasion like that, with a nonsensical substitute phrase.  

Next time you send a birthday card to your partner who's taken the day off work, why not just send a "happy Holiday" card instead?  Would you send a "welcome Crotchfruit" card to the happy new parents?  It grates, it makes no sense and it's generally more socially acceptable, for the majority, just to maintain the social norms. 

Happiest Holidays reminds me of another pet miff.  Kindest Regards.  Why do so many sign off that way these days?  Is "Kind Regards" now so lacking in generosity that only the superlative form can possibly suffice? 

First we had Regards, then somebody had to outdo that by making them Kind.  Clearly that wasn't sufficient, so it's grown to Kindest.  Whatever comes next?  

I think I'm becoming too old for this world.