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Haldis Rucci
It's conventional to reference the next upcoming holiday in goodbyes if the holiday is near, so saying "Happy New Year's" would be best since that's the next coming up holiday on the 28th. Expressing hope that they had a good holiday is polite and can be part of a polite goodbye:
New Years is a well known holiday and doesn't have to be connected with any religion or political ideology, it's just ushering in a new year on the calendar. So it's safe to wish people a happy New Year.
To answer this, we first need to acknowledge "the controversy" so we can side-step it. The controversy over what one "should" say is well documented in many other places on the web, including Wikipedia at _controversy. Depending on who you say it to, they may be pleased, neutral, or offended. There is no definitive, authoritative, StackExchange type English answer to what one "should" or "shouldn't" say in this regard.
The main question is what one should say on December 28th as a holiday greeting between Christmas and New Years Day. This too has no definitive, authoritative Stack Exchange type answer. People can provide their own thoughts and ideas about common practice they have observed, but that is neither definitive nor authoritative.
There are standard guides on English, including the use of holiday expressions, but any such standard has some cultural, political, business or other subjective basis, and has some relative objective. Some standards are based on maximizing the probability of appeasing the majority of a certain population such as a company's customers. Others are concerned with minimizing objections among minority religious and secular groups. Some standards are designed to avoid legal issues. But there is no single, authoritative standard for what one "should" say within free-speech English.1
We can indicate whether something is correct or incorrect English. All such combinations or permutations given in OP's post (and other posts/comments) are valid in terms of English language. One may say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy New Year!" or "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!" and each would be a grammatically correct utterance in the English language within AmE/BrE. All are correct. None is incorrect. In fact, you can say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy New Year" at any point during the entire year, and still be grammatically correct!
Why is it correct? Grammatically, "Merry Christmas!" is traditionally considered to be the short form of "I wish you have a merry Christmas!" or "I wish for you a merry Christmas!" which is a wish, which is an imperative sentence. The short form, which is also similar to a exclamatory phrase, is accepted/correct in spoken language, informal writing, and titles such as found on banners and holiday cards. Any wish with correct form is grammatically correct (including the contorted, "Happy Christmas and Merry New Years!") Linguistic correctness is relative to common usage, and on this basis "Merry Christmas!" is correct in the informal register. (However, "Happy Christmas" would generally be noticed as different, odd, a playful change-from-normal, or an error.)
The traditional categorization of holiday greetings (wishes) as imperative sentences has been debated in modern treatments. The new focus has considered an additional dimension of function instead of just form. "Merry Christmas" and the like could be considered a speech act that serves a social function. To learn more about different philosophies of the grammar/function/meaning of holiday greetings and other language constructs, see phatic expressions, pragmatics, and philosophy of language.
There is no definitive rule or guideline regarding what to say in the interim between Dec 25th and Jan 1st. All options indicated are valid English statements. Other valid suggestions are posed in various answers and comments. The choice is yours, and will likely be based on your own beliefs, your assessment of the cultural group you are talking to, and your desired objective.
1. In a more general sense, there are some definitive and authoritative laws regarding what one should or shouldn't say in certain circumstances. For example, in "free speech" countries, it's typically illegal to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there is no such fire. Such a statement, while grammatically fine English, would likely land a person in jail and should not be uttered. Contractual agreements often create an obligation that mandates some form of speech or restraint thereof. For example, one is often contractually obligated to refrain from saying something negative about the company they work for and refrain from divulging company secrets. Also, there are certain laws that may compel one to state facts or professional opinions in a court of law. Similarly, in some non-XYZ or anti-XYZ (XYZ=Christian, Religious) countries, saying "Merry Christmas" may be against the law and incur severe penalties.
Christmas is a big holiday in the U.S., many people are preparing for it weeks in advance -- buying presents and planning parties and so forth -- and are still celebrating it days after. So wishing someone a "Merry Christmas" on December 28 wouldn't seem particularly odd. However, while I haven't collected statistics on this, I think more than two or three days after Christmas most Americans fall back to a generic greeting, "Have a nice day" or "How are you?" or whatever. Most only use "Happy New Year" on December 31 and January 1.
I'm speaking of in-person greetings. It is common to send cards saying "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" any time after Thanksgiving to just before Christmas. People very rarely send such cards after Christmas, and if you do, the receiver generally assumes that it is because you forgot to send it earlier.
RE "Happy Holidays": This is most definitely NOT an easy "neutral" greeting that avoids offending anyone. Yes, some non-Christians are offended by any mention of the word "Christmas". But lots of Christians are offended by this deliberate refusal to even say the name of their holiday. If you don't see that, let me put it this way: Suppose someone showed you a picture of a busy sidewalk, and all the people visible in the picture were white. You might assume that at the time the person clicked the picture there just didn't happen to be any non-whites present. But then suppose the photographer told you that in the original picture there were several black people, and he used Photoshop to edit them all out because he doesn't want to offend anyone who hates black people. Would you say, "Oh, good idea. That's a good neutral position that avoids offending either blacks or whites." Or would you say, "If someone is offended by just seeing a black person in a picture, we should be denouncing that person as a racist, not catering to him!" The latter is how I react when people say that they use "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas" to avoid offending anti-Christians. I would feel the same way if someone told me that he refuses to name Hanukkah or Ramadan or Diwali.
If your goal is to pointedly offend Christians, then yes, say "Happy Holidays". "Merry Christmas" is probably the "safer" greeting as even most non-Christians are not offended at a reminder that a religion that they don't believe in exists. Many non-Christians in America celebrate Christmas, presumably without referring to Jesus Christ but just giving gifts and having parties. But yes, a tiny number of anti-Christians, as opposed to simply non-Christians, are offended by the mention of Christmas. If you don't want to offend either group, then stick to a greeting that makes no mention of any holidays, like "Hello" or "Have a nice day". I've never heard of someone being offended by those.
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I\u2019m currently at home streaming Christmas films and drinking mulled wine, so it\u2019s officially time to sign off from Mixed Messages until 2024. Thank you SO much for your support this year \u2013 I know I say it often, but it really means the world that you spend time with me here.
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I\u2019m wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous new year. We\u2019ll be back in 2024 with presenter and Clean Curls founder Sarah-Jane Crawford. There are some changes on the horizon, and hopefully some exciting developments, so I can\u2019t wait to get stuck in.
Enjoy Mixed Messages? Support me on Ko-Fi! Your donations, which can start from \u00A33, help me pay for the transcription software needed to keep this newsletter weekly, as well as special treats for subscribers. I also earn a small amount of commission (at no extra cost to you) on any purchases made through my Bookshop.org and Amazon affiliate links.
Mixed Messages is a weekly exploration of the mixed-race experience, from me, Isabella Silvers. My mom is Punjabi (by way of East Africa) and my dad is white British, but finding my place between these cultures hasn\u2019t always been easy. That\u2019s why I started Mixed Messages, where each week I\u2019ll speak to a prominent mixed voice to delve into what it really feels like to be mixed.
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