Is Political Correctness Missing the Point During the Holiday Season?

I think our societal perceptions of what is offensive might be a bit skewed. I came to this epiphany at a recent staff meeting at my place of business. At this pre-holiday meeting, a coworker began a diatribe warning us against telling our customers "Merry Christmas," insisting that he "didn't want to hear those words come from our mouths."

"I only want to hear 'Happy Holidays' or 'Season's Greetings,' and I don't care if the people come in wearing Christian t-shirts or yarmulkas on their heads - I don't want to hear 'Merry Christmas' or 'Happy Hanukkah,'" he said (angrily, I might add). Then this coworker, in almost the same breath, proceeded to use a string of profane words, including a derogatory word for women. This of course begs the obvious question: do we find a well-intentioned holiday-specific greeting more offensive than vulgarity and profanity?

Based on my social observations, the answer to this question is that we do cower behind "safe" greetings, afraid of offending someone who may not celebrate the season as we do, but barely blink an eye at language which has, at its roots, the intention to slander another people group or to give voice to angry, hateful, and disgusting thoughts. Why do we gasp if someone wishes us well from their perspective as a Christian or other religious adherent? If a person tells me Merry Christmas, or Happy Hanukkah, or Happy Kwanzaa, I can see the good heart of the well-wisher who is extending to me his or her desires that I too enjoy the holiday season, regardless of the fact that I celebrate Christmas as Christ's Birth instead of the Festival of Lights. (Although this is tangential, I do have to throw in that Hanukkah could and maybe even should be celebrated by Christians as well because of its historical roots as the celebration of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid tyrant Antiochus IV.)