During the current holiday season, the usual ornery voices criticizing the use of the phrase “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” have resurfaced. But such criticism has gone on for long enough that their fulminations are no longer widely heeded. To try and understand why people should say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays”, and make the message of celebrating Christmas relevant to a new generation, we decided to speak with Brent Charles “Chad” Worthington, the Outreach Director of the Institute for Creating Holiness by Restoring Innocuous Staging of Topically Meaningful and Appropriate Sermonizing (the CHRISTMAS Institute.) Brent explained that every time someone says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”,…

This year, the College prepared some special programming for first-years, such as several active learning experiences to convey the cultural impact of the various books they read in Hum classes. One first-year, however, encountered several unpleasant surprises due to using The Odyssey as his travel guide. We have reproduced his write-up of his experiences below, as a warning to all those who would follow his path.     “My Terrible Mediterranean Adventure” -By Ody “Odie” Seuss   Day 1: My Hum class and I set out from Chicago onto Lake Michigan, sailing from there through the rest of the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River, and out into the Atlantic Ocean.…