Happy Holidays is still at least a good alternative, if understood correctly. It may have been proposed by Jewish people for the sake of Hanukkah. Yes... Hanukkah presages Christmas in many ways. I wish people both, sometimes. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays. The freedom to wish either or both is wonderful. Let’s not P.C. out Happy Holidays because Merry Christmas was P.C.’d out before.
I work in a hospital and sometimes work Christmas and there is nothing happy about very sick or dying people...
and "merry" and "happy" are just not descriptive of what's going in peoples' lives..
I prefer now to say have a peaceful Christmas, or even God bless us this Christmas or similar....