Happy Christmas....

... or, as they say here in America, Merry... I'm wondering, not for the first time, why it is that I was brought up, in England, saying Happy Christmas, while over this side of the pond it's invariably Merry Christmas. I checked this out with a fellow ex-pat yesterday at the gym and she confirmed that, yes, she too had been brought up saying Happy. More Dickens readers here, these days, I wonder? Or is the U.S. simply still stuck in the nineteenth century? Curious, the old habits one sticks with. I have never felt comfortable saying Merry Christmas--and it's not the Christmas part of it, as those who wage that noble war against the war on Christmas would have it. It's the Merry part. I can't quite get my mouth around to saying the word. It's like bath. I haven't yet learned to say it with that short, practical, American "a". I still say "baaarth." Though I don't use the thing much myself, anyway. I shower, American-style. But I do still use the word for George, the dog. He enjoys a weekly baaarth. Ah well. Happy Christmas, everyone!