Frazz by Jef Mallett for December 20, 2017

Happy Festivus!

The all-inclusive greeting: Bah, Humbug!

I like to say “Happy Holy Days”

I cheerfully accept any holiday greeting in the spirit in which it is offered.

Billow Reilly???

I believe you should express how you feel in words that mean something to you personally. Others will recognize the sincerity of the tone and your expression and not just the words.

I usually greet anyone who passes, who is looking in my direction. Sometimes get a startled look, but usually get a very nice reply and a smile. Makes my day much brighter.

There’s nothing wrong with generic if you don’t know what the other person is celebrating. That’s why stores do it. Their customers are celebrating lots of different things.

There are too many people just hoping to destroy other’s happiness.

I say Happy Solstice, not wonderful solstice

Always good to remember that all the retail clerks in every industry simultaneously decided — on their own — to say ‘happy holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas’.

.

It couldn’t have been orders from corporate headquarters.

Just couldn’t have.

Part of my War on Everything includes drinking coffee from a /plain/ red mug. Ha ha, take that, Santa Claws and Jebus and everyone!

In seeking to determine the date of Christmas, critics have tended to discuss the matter in one of two ways. Those who would calculate the date seek to demonstrate that the Nativity of Jesus can be determined by the chronology of the liturgical calendar. Proponents of an historical approach, on the other hand, tend to interpret Christmas as a substitution for the annual birth of Sol Invictus on December 25.

In the Julian reform of the Roman calendar, December 25, the eighth day after the Kalends of January (VIII Kal. Jan.), was recognized as the winter solstice. Nine months earlier, March 25 was the vernal equinox, the eighth day before the Kalends of April (VIII Kal. Apr.), which marked the beginning of spring. This tradition of assigning the equinoxes and solstices to the eighth day before the Kalends (the first day of the month) later was embraced by the church in its calculation of the birth date of Jesus.

Businesses with any sense do not want to alienate customers, so “Happy Holidays” makes it easy to deal with. (Otherwise it gets cumbersome with all the holidays one can list for the Dec.-Jan. Cycle.)

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/invictus.html

Frazz

11 hrs ·

It seems like these are the basic categories:

People searching for a problem to solve

People searching for a problem to exploit

People just searching for a problem.

I was set to get up on some kind of High Horse of the Obvious and declare that the hierarchy was clear enough at the top, and that it was hard to tell which order to put the remaining two in. But then it seemed legitimately hard. Is exploiting a problem really worse than just wallowing in one? I suppose it is, if by exploiting it you’re weaponizing it. But is not solving a problem just a form of exploiting one?

It’s very awkward, because as a writer, and especially a writer of funnies, exploiting problems, mishaps and foibles is my business. It’s my job description. And you have to search for the foibles before you can cook them into a joke stew. And then maybe you brighten a few people’s day. Now you’ve solved a problem by searching for a different, random one and exploiting it.

I suppose I’m overthinking things. Which is also my job description. Or at least my M.O.

Though I will say, simply enough, that anyone who has a problem with anybody wishing anybody a happy, merry, good or blessed anything doesn’t strike me as the solving type.

Frazz by Jef Mallett for Dec 20, 2017 | GoComics.com

Happy Beethoven’s Birthday and a joyous Diwali.

On a gift I got this year there were three different greetings: Season’s Greetings, Happy Holidays and Merry Everything. Seriously. Good chocolates though.

Happy HUMBUG is a fine greeting