Merry also means drunk - at least in common British English.
Therefore it is quite an easy state to attain either from the offy, or a few pubs tat are also open for a few hours in the afternoon.
The song goes “We wish you a merry Christmas”, so that’ll always be there for as long as the song is popular.
Plus (also because of the song, I assume), you say “merry Christmas and a happy new year”, not “happy Christmas and a happy new year”. Too much happy there.
Automatic response. Nobody that I am close with is actually happy (or even fine), but when staff asks you in greeting if you’re having a good day and did you find everything okay, you know they are bullshitting the “I’m doing well, and yes, thanks”. Same sort of automatic bullshit response.
We are living paycheck to paycheck (some not even that), with slowly rising levels of debt, in dead-end jobs while the earth slowly boils us and rich fucks get richer. In tight-knit circles, suicide is often discussed openly and often, and death is welcomed. My best friend recently told me that (if they die before me, as if lol) when I attend the funeral, if anyone suggests that they had a happy life, I am to punch that person in the face, without hesitation.
Life is pain. But it’s so much quicker to fake that your existence isn’t hell, so lying to people in ways that doesn’t matter is way easier.
Insofar as there’s a distinction between the two, I feel like you’ve got it switched. Merriment would be a night out with drinks and friends, whereas deep happiness would be more like contentedness with your life choices. But they’re about the same. Plus “A Christmas Carol” uses Merry, and it’s like the ultimate Christmas story.
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