My wife, Roselyn and I were chatting yesterday, and she mentioned in passing that there seemed to be an effort by some people to remove Christmas out of Christmas. Since "Merry Xmas" didn't appear to catch-on “Merry Christmas” is now being supplant it with “Happy Holidays”.

Although there isn’t anything inherently wrong with wishing someone a “happy holiday” I do believe that we need to take a step back and consider what is happening here. In order to do this, we need to reflect upon what this season is all about.

Christmas isn’t just about presents, eating copious amounts of food and holidays. At its roots, Christmas is a Christian religious celebration that centres upon the birth of Jesus. It’s about God reaching down to man, not as a judge but out of love by sending his son as the saviour for the world. Whether you believe the above or not is irrelevant to the millions of people that have this conviction in their heart.

If we are to be respectful towards Christians then I believe we need to call this period what it is, Christmas. Similarly, to be respectful to Muslims we should not try and rename Ramadan to something else or the Hindu festival, Diwali, as the “Happy Light Show”.

This would suggest that to make the least offense the politically correct lobby should insist that everyone says, “Merry Christmas”. The question I began to ponder is why don’t they? I could almost guarantee that if we renamed Hannukkah to something else then the Jewish community would be appalled and there would rightly be a voice of protest.

I do apologise if I offend anyone in this post….it is not my intention. Over the years I’ve noticed that Christmas has become more about commercialism and political correctness than it is about the true spirit of Christmas and the reason for it’s being.

Christmas is a derivation of two words, “Christ’s mass”. According to etymology, Christmas is derived from the Middle English Cristemasse, which is from Old English Crīstesmæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038 followed by the word Cristes-messe in 1131.

Christmas is all about Christ and the spirit of love, compassion and the ultimate sacrificial gift that he brought to the world. When I say, “Merry Christmas” to someone I’m wishing all of these Christ-like blessings upon them.

Whether you are a Christian, of some other faith or of no faith at all, you would have to acknowledge the fact that there was an extremely influential man about 2,000 years ago that walked the earth. Our whole dating system has been based upon him. BC is Before Christ and AD anno-domini or “in the year of our Lord”. In fact, many historians now acknowledge there is more historical evidence for Christ than there is for Julius Caesar.

If someone wishes you “Merry Christmas” they aren’t trying to force their faith upon you but rather wish you rich blessings. Likewise, if a person of Islamic faith says, “The peace of the prophet be upon you,” then I wouldn’t get upset either. They are wishing blessings upon you from their perspective and we should respect the giver and the gift appropriately.

Many people have no problem with saying sorry when they’ve done something wrong but refuse to apologize when they firmly believe they're right. They take the stance, that since they’ve done nothing wrong (in their eyes) then why should they say sorry. What this behavior clearly demonstrates is their lack of understanding of the purpose of apologizing.

Saying your sorry has less to do with right and wrong and more to do with hurt feelings. Being right doesn’t mean you haven’t hurt someone else’s feelings and standing on your dignity by not apologizing often just makes the situation worse.

This year I’m coming up to my thirtieth wedding anniversary with the most wonderful, patient and loving lady I could ever dream of spending my life with. Has it all been plain sailing? Heck no! Like any marriage, over the years we’ve had our ups and downs.

I remember one time when I knew that I knew that I was right and yet my wife was in tears in front of me. This was a bazaar situation for a young male who inadvertently poured buckets of gas on his wife's flaming misery by telling her to just “get over it”. It was after a number of these episodes that it dawned on me (with a lot of help from Roselyn) that because I did no wrong didn’t mean I was right.

Sure enough……it happened again. I took the superior position of being “right” and expected Roselyn to realize the error of her feelings. We males can be really dumb sometimes! It took a few minutes for me to work out that I was about to go on the merry-go-round again so this time I decided to step off.

I apologized. Not for anything I’d done wrong but for the fact that I’d hurt her feelings. Something magical happened in that moment…..peace was restored to our relationship.

So many of us are trying to win each and every battle with those that we “love” that we forget we’re actually not at war. A simple heart-felt apology is often all that it takes to restore the relationship and bring a little bit of heaven to your earth.

Like I said, I’m coming up to my thirtieth anniversary this year and when you’ve been around someone that long you learn a lot about them and yourself. It’s been an adventure that has led to a depth of love, respect and appreciation that has far surpassed my expectations when we first got married…..we thought we loved each other then. LOL! That was nothing compared to now.

Learning to say sorry when you’re not at fault is one of the many lessons that my wife and I have both learned over the years. As we look forward to the years ahead I sometimes wonder how we can love each other more than we already do……and then I look at both of our parents who have been married for 50+ years and smile.

If you want to build long last relationships with your loved ones then my advice is to humble yourself to say sorry even when you don’t think you should.

Have a great weekend!