Merry Christmas vs Happy Holidays

So, I promised a post bitching about Christmas, and this is about as close as it's going to get, for now anyways.

Two days ago I was at the maul mall, picking up a Christmas card for my friend's teenage son.  I found one with a suitably silly fart joke on it, and was waiting in line to pay.  It's important to note at this point in the story that the cashier was of some ethnic background other than white. (That's all I got...I won't try to pinpoint what exactly her background was, I have no idea; just that she was dark-skinned and wore a head scarf.)

She rang up the purchase of a bitchy old lady in front of me, then brightly wished her "Happy Holidays!"

From this old woman's reaction, you would have thought the cashier had broken all ten commandments at once.

"What do you mean, 'HAPPY HOLIDAYS??' the harpy absolutely shrieked.  "Whatever happened to 'Merry Christmas'??  It's people like YOU" (here she jabbed an accusing finger at the cashier, who was very rapidly going from shocked to upset) "that take the Christ out of Christmas!" and on and on and on and ON she went.  At this point, I'm getting annoyed and impatient and my natural desire to protect service staff kicks in.  The cashier can't say anything.  But I certainly fuckin can.  And I will. Finally I interrupted the old bat on her rant.

"Lady," I snapped, "get a bloody GRIP!"  She spun around, looking as stunned as she would have if I had smacked the back of her head.  Believe me, I was tempted.  "What did you say??" she screeched at me.  "I said, get a grip.  Calm down, you are flipping out over NOTHING.  LESS than nothing.  'Happy holidays' is a well-wish, just like merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, joyous solstice, Happy zombie Jesus day, or whatever the hell you celebrate.  She could have told you to go to hell.  She could have told you to go die in a fire.  Take 'Happy Holidays's as the well-wish it was meant to be, shut your cakehole and get on with your life!  Good GOD!!"  (Okay yeah, I realise I wasn't very polite.  I just hate when people act like that.  I spent a lot of years in customer service, in the same position as that poor cashier, and I can't tell you how many times I wished some other customer would come to my rescue.)

The old bag looked surprised to find someone who could make as much, if not more, noise than her, and she gave me what we in the service industry like to call, "Cat-butt face".  I can't describe it; suffice to say that when you see cat-butt face, you'll know EXACTLY what I mean.  She exclaimed, "Well, I never!" and I had one more brain-to-mouth filter failure when I snapped back, "Well maybe you SHOULD!"  She snatched up her receipt and her items, gave the cashier (who was now trying very hard not to laugh) and I one last, incensed look before storming out of the store.  The cashier rang up my stuff uneventfully and on my way out of the store, I stopped in the doorway and called out, "Happy holidays, miss!"