Does the season need a reason?

It’s said there are two subjects that are best avoided in polite company. Religion is one of them. The other, its close cousin, is politics. Luckily this blog of mine is not polite company. Back in December, a Christmas picture “contest” was launched on Forum, and people were encouraged to send in pictures of themselves naked according to a Christmas theme, perhaps nude under the tree or by a roaring fire, or wearing nothing but a Santa Clause hat. There were many entries. One of them included the following Christmas wish:May the New Year bring peace and joy to all who remember Jesus is the reason for the season. You can find the photo and greeting athttp://www.truenudists.com/forum/viewthread.php?id=6313&page=4, right at the top of the page. One member reacted by pointing out the greeting left out a lot of people. The underlying premise was that those who didn’t believe Jesus was the reason for the season were not being wished peace and joy. While he may have intended it as a criticism, I didn’t see it that way. But someone else did. You can see his comment on that same page, number 58. I ventured in with my own comment at number 60. I said the original poster exercised her right to include a certain number of people, and the subsequent poster merely pointed out that she was leaving out a large number of people. It certainly didn’t seem to me like he was looking for an opportunity to be offended. The response to that is comment number 61 on the following page. Clearly, he wasn’t happy with what I had to say. A subsequent private message to that same person to clear things up met with a similar response. So, I didn’t bother pursuing the matter further on Forum. But I reserve the right to make my view known here. Whatever else the member said, he was clearly wrong when he wrote:If it said, "May the new year bring peace and joyONLYto all who remember Jesus is the reason for the season," that would be a valid interpretation. As it stands, it appears to be a matter of looking for an excuse to be offended.And all I need to prove him wrong is a good book on English grammar. The word “who” is often used to introduce a dependent (or subordinate) clause. In those cases, it can either be a restrictive clause or a non-restrictive clause. A non-restrictive clause is one that does not serve to identify or define the person, group or object that comes before it. It is parenthetic, and for that reason it is set off by a comma. Restrictive clauses are NOT parenthetic and are not set off by commas because they DO identify or define the object preceding it. Consider this sentence:We are Christians, who remember Jesus is the reason for the season. The meaning in the above italicised sentence is that all Christians remember that Jesus is the reason for the season. The comma makes the clause non-restrictive. Now, consider this sentence:We are Christians who remember Jesus is the reason for the season. The meaning in the above italicised sentence is that theseparticularChristians remember that Jesus is the reason for the season. There is no comma, therefore the clause is restrictive. Now, let’s consider the sentence that got all of this started. First, let’s add a comma that did not appear originally:May the New Year bring peace and joy to all, who remember Jesus is the reason for the season. In this case, ALL are said to remember that Jesus is the reason for the season since the comma makes this sentence a non-restrictive clause. Whether this is true or not is beside the point. Compare that with the following sentence, the same minus the comma:May the New Year bring peace and joy to all who remember Jesus is the reason for the season. In this case, it is clear that some people don’t believe Jesus is the reason for the season since the comma isn’t there to make the clause non-restrictive. Clearly, some believe Jesus is the reason for season, and they are the ones to whom the message is intended. Whatever we may want to believe about someone “looking for an excuse to be offended,” it’s still a fact that a restrictive clause was used. No amount of arguing can change that. Since the original author never bothered to clarify his or her statement, we can only assume this was not the result of bad grammar.