BTGuy:
I understood what you meant, and I still don’t get why it’s avoda zara to wish a non-Jew happy holidays. I know the halachos with a church, but I fail to see how it applies. You aren’t saying that you’re jealous of the awesome time he’s having on his holiday when you say “happy holiday”- you’re wishing him the same thing he had the menschlichkeit to say to you, that he should have a good vacation, have a good time with his family, off from work, etc. You’re not complimenting the holiday, if that’s where the whole church-complimenting thing comes in; you’re wishing him a good time on his holiday, the same way you might wish him a happy birthday.
If there’s something I’m missing here, please tell me.
As far as the whole thing with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s name, in my AP European class, we call him the J word. Not the C word. It comes up a lot in European history. One student wanted to call him Yoshke the whole time, but we were worried that someone would write it on the AP test.