Must say I 100% disagree with your post. Christmas is a season widely celebrated by many not for its Christian roots but as a wide ranging family based time . It is part of the cultural heritage of the UK and long may it continue.

I am happy we haven’t gone down the American tradition of Happy Holidays. ( and isn’t holidays derived from holy days anyway so surely that might offend some?). We can be inclusive and open without being entirely homogeneous. Indeed part of recognising diversity is accepting that people have different backgrounds and different journeys to where we are. And for many/ most in the UK  that included Christmas with its trees , tinsel and Father Christmas. 

two thoughts:

The time off is because it is Christmas whether we believe in it or not.

Holiday as a word is derived from holy days which you may or may not observe, so might still be offensive to some (including those who cannot have time off at this time of the year).

In reply to Keith:

Our replies crossed
One other thought

if I worked in a very different country/culture I would not object to recognising their holy days or even stuff like Labour day, independence or thanksgiving

On a practical note could you opt out of the emails?

Hi Debbie Aarons... I know that at HQ they would've discussed this probably at some length over the years. My colleagues behind the @CIPD Twitter media account do an amazing job of celebrating a host of cultural traditions.

‘we have emerged out of civilisation into barbarism.’ (John Betjeman)

HAPPY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!!

In reply to David:

And a Happy Winter Solstice to you David.... Oh Sorry, that is a pagan festival, as well as a Jewish one, and a Druidic one (which is where the Christian-festival mistletoe association comes from, adopted in the same way that the Yule Log and Fir-tree were from other non-Christian religions....) 

So I suppose, thinking about it, that since the Christian Church has adopted, plagiarised or conveniently "absorbed" traditions from across the religious divide (as did the Romans, who they probably pinched the idea from) it seems that "Happy Christmas" is pretty inclusive after all!

I do not have to believe in God, Gods, Christ or the tooth-fairy, to accept goodwill from others, and I hope that those offering it, in any language or from any theological or philosophical background, will not need a holiday to promote their goodwill toward me; as I do not need a paid holiday to offer mine to them. What I would find offensive is for anyone to be prevented from expressing their joy in whatever event, emotion, or belief, enhances their goodwill at whatever time. Birth, birthday. weekend, new week: Happy Monday! Happy Hanukah! Happy Yule! Happy first day of the rest of my life! Happy Christmas! Does it matter? Can the expression of honest goodwill ever be intended to offend, whatever its stimulus? Or is it seeking to judgementally exclude supress and punish the expression of goodwill, as a demonstration of personal, non-detrimental, belief or for any other cause, that should be considered the real cause of detriment, and offence?

So: Happy five-past-nine, because I BELIEVE it is! :-)

P

There is absolutely no reason why the CIPD should not wish us a Happy Christmas. That is what it is. If we start saying Happy Holidays, we would have to do the same during Eid, Hanukkah, Diwali etc The entire cultural calendar would just be a massive generic list of "Christian Holiday", " Muslim Holiday.

Refusing to recognise or respect the holidays of different religions is not inclusive at all - quite the opposite in fact. I have Muslim friends who wish me Happy Christmas (I'm Wiccan rather than Christian so Yuletide Greetings is more appropriate, but I appreciate that they are respecting what they believe is my religion) ) and i wish them Eid Mubarak

So i very much hope that my professional body will continue to with me Happy Christmas

I am very much an atheist, but still sang in my community choir in the cathedral at the weekend and sang in praise of god and baby Jesus. Just because I am not a Christian does not mean that I should refuse to take part. I may mutter under my breath at the lord's prayer and roll my eyes a bit at the nativity story, but I am part of the community and wish to celebrate with my fellow choristers.

As I was a kid growing up in the Marches, I was English, living in England but attending school in Wales - I still celebrated St David's Day with gusto (more so than St George's Day actually) and I learnt to speak Welsh.

I think organisations and people should embrace and reflect the cultures they are part of. Christianity is a part of British Culture and the CIPD is a UK organisation. We have a public holiday in the UK in celebration of Christmas - not for any other reason. Therefore, wishing people Happy Christmas at Christmastime is a perfectly valid greeting, reflecting the culture of many of its members. I hope they continue to do so.

If you follow the CIPD on social media you will also notice they also regularly wish their members a Happy Hannukah, Divali and Eid Mubarak and acknowledge many other religious festivals too. This is the inclusive thing to do - recognising the festival and culture to be celebrated, not just sanitising it with "happy holidays" - which could be realistically said 8 times a year whenever we have a public holiday.

In reply to Lesley:

Humankind the world over has always developed fundamentally eerily-similar mythologies etc

Eg
en.wikipedia.org/.../The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces

en.wikipedia.org/.../From_Ritual_to_Romance

en.wikipedia.org/.../The_Golden_Bough

TS Eliot in 'The Waste Land' drew heavily on Fraser and Weston as above. This fellow too was inspired by Eliot and the tradition he drew upon towards his own (more modest but none the worse for that) personal credo, recounted here over 50 years past on the radio but still fresh as a daisy and very topical indeed:

www.evernote.com/.../snv

Nowt specifically to do with HR perhaps, except we all ignore the 'human' dimension at our great peril - and, sadly, increasingly so IMHO.

In reply to Steve Bridger:

I think we've probably said enough about this this. Onwards.

In reply to Lesley:

not to mention being sensitive to our Scottish and Northern Ireland colleagues who have different public holidays (in part)

In reply to Peter Stanway:

yep, and those of us like me in overseas territories! We actually get 9 public holidays here :)

Hi Debbie, thanks for your message, it's interesting to hear different viewpoints.

We take a varied approach with our seasonal greetings here at the CIPD. Our official cards say Season's greetings, we refer to 'festive' activities quite a lot in messaging as it seems to sum up the general 'vibes' around this time of year. But yes we also refer to Christmas, often in longer messaging pieces, as that's extremely common phrasing for this period, culminating of course in Christmas Day on 25 Dec.

Having worked with and known some Jehovah's Witnesses for example, I am aware that they (or the ones I know) do not celebrate at all and refer to the period as a holiday. As others have said, we also celebrate other festivals and celebrations to reflect our wide membership (and staff) base and the fact we have offices in other countries such as Singapore and Dubai. I'm sorry your wish to not get that particular greeting via email has not been noted sufficiently and will pass this on to our database team so we can log for this time next year. Our new inclusion resource for CIPD members provided by our friends at Diversiton is now available in the form of a calendar for 2019.

All the best, Johanna, CIPD Social and Community Manager.

In reply to Johanna:

Thanks, Johanna