Why do American say ‘holidays’ instead of Christmas

[mouseaka]

when they’re such an overwhelmingly religious country?

Meanwhile over here in the UK we’re far more secular but everyone just calls it Christmas?

It’s weird, if anything you’d expect it to be the other way around!

Does the holidays not include Thanksgiving as well?

It includes thanks giving

They very much call Christmas Christmas.

Thry call all kinds of festivals/events "Holidays" as I understand it.

I think Halloween, Easter, 4th July etc etc are all "Holidays"

There are a few different religious holidays in December, and many people don't celebrate Christmas.

I always assumed it was because their actual holiday allowances were terrible in the US but everyone has a good chunk of time off over Christmas, so they called it the holidays as so many people are off work. No idea why I thought that!

It is an inclusive term and the holidays technically start with Thanksgiving. Plus, despite what our current Leader and his cronies say we do have separation of church and state and a lot of the population do not celebrate Christmas. It is just nicer to use the more generic term

Because of Hanukkah

Oh yes, I guess that makes sense. So it’s more a celebratory ‘season’ over there, than a single event?

Ameri English is annoying to me as a Brit but it’s what my spellchecker corrects me to so I guess it’s the future and you’ll probably be using it yourself soon enough.

Yes, and I think there are more Jewish people than in the UK (could be wrong)

Holidays includes Hanukkah, New Years Day, Thanksgiving etc as well as Christmas.

Holidays includes Hanukkah, New Years Day, Thanksgiving etc as well as Christmas.

It doesn’t include Thanksgiving. It’s because of Hanukkah. And maybe an expansive view would also include Kwanzaa, NYE, snd Winter Solstice.

I was always under the impression that it's because Thanksgiving, Hannukkah and Christmas all fall within a short period. Saying "Happy Holidays" is a way to acknowledge them all in one go.

They all go back to work on boxing day though. Can you imagine?
Some don't even know what boxing day is

I assumed that it was partly because of the separation between church and state in the US.

Well they aren't British, so boxing day is irrelevant. My GM and Mother wouldn't have been aware of Black Friday. Kwanzaa starts on December 26th.
Happy holidays is inclusive, with America being a mix of heritage/immigrants/cultures/religions.

There’s a fair few celebrations around in December like Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.

Yes it starts at thanksgiving and includes Hanukkah as well as Christmas!

This.

Because America is an entirely different culture to the U.K.

HTH

Depends where you are in the US. In NYC it’s the default because lots of people have other cultural holidays around the same time.

I remember a surreal cross-cultural conversation when trying to book a Christmas dinner for a group of Brits and assorted international types, not one of whom was Christian, and being admonished by the restaurant lady that it was exclusionary to call it a Christmas dinner becuase didn’t I realise that if anyone present were not Christian they would be offended.

Where do you think the word holiday comes from...

Re your original point about it being a more religious country, the word holiday is actually quite fitting as it is derived from 'holy days', from which our holidays are of course (mainly) derived anyway.