Who originated "Merry Christmas"?

Solution 1:

You're essentially correct. See this article for a plausible history. The salient excerpts:

"The use of 'Merry Christmas' as a seasonal salutation dates back to at least 1534, when, on 22nd December, John Fisher wished the season's greetings in a letter to Thomas Cromwell, recorded in Strype Ecclesiastical memorials, 1816):

And this our Lord God send you a mery Christmas, and a comfortable, to your heart’s desire.

"1843 was the date of the publication of Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol and it was around that time, in the early part of the reign of Queen Victoria, that Christmas as we now know it was largely invented. The word merry was then beginning to take on its current meaning of 'jovial, and outgoing' (and, let's face it, probably mildly intoxicated). Prior to that, in the times when other 'merry' phrases were coined, for example, make merry (circa 1300), Merry England (circa 1400) and the merry month of May (1560s), merry had a different meaning, that is, 'pleasant, peaceful and agreeable'."

The article goes on to note that Queen Elizabeth II prefers the phrase "happy Christmas," ostensibly because "merry" connotes frivolity and (possibly) inebriation. This would be one of the primary sources of resistance to the phrase in the UK.

In the States, there's no definitive date either side of which the phrase is acceptable or unacceptable. Rather, as this piece in Forbes suggests, the tussle over "Merry Christmas" is about the attempt by retailers to entice customers without also offending them.

According to this Rasmussen poll, 68% of Americans, c. 2012, prefer "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays". It's merely an assumption, but a safe one, that the rise of evangelicals in the political sphere has contributed to the resurgent debate about the phrase's political correctness, and to the assertion that its suppression represents an assault on Christian values. This places the beginnings of the debate, as we currently know it, roughly in the '80s.

Solution 2:

Prior to the 1840s, merry in Enland did NOT mean joyful or intoxicated, but instead meant pleasant, peaceful and agreeable'.