Family, Christmas is and has always been a special time for us. It is a celebration, the birthday of Our Lord Jesus. It is a time of rejoicing, eating too much at times, and giving gifts from the heart, gifts that have meaning for us to the ones we love.
However, in the last ten years or so, the very people who should be helping us share this joyful celebration of Our Savior's birthday with our loved ones, by giving them gifts, the retail stores who provide the merchandise we use to give our loved ones these gifts, who charge us money to do this, have proceeded to put a really sour note on the whole season of Christmas, by taking Christ out of Christmas. Nothing frosts me more than to go into a store with all the joy and anticipation of getting a really well-thought-out gift for a loved one, to find that they refuse to use the word Christmas in their advertising of the products they want us to buy for Christmas. It defies logic, but it really gets my Irish up.
They will go all around Africa in their excuses as to why they won't use the word Christmas. They use words like Holiday, and Gift giving Season. But they refuse to give credit to the reason for the season. Doesn't Holiday tree sound really stupid? And just recently, one of them decided to combine Christmas, Hanukah, and other holidays together. What they actually did was to insult all the religious expressions. Read the lyrics.
"Two, Four, Six, Eight, now's the time to liberate Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanza, Go Solstice. Go classic tree, go plastic tree, go plant a tree, go add a tree, You 86 the rules; you do what feels just right. Happy do whatever you wanukkah, and to all a cheery night. Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, go whatever holiday you wanukkah"
This was put out by a major retailer this year. They do something stupid like this every year, and every year American Family Association and Save Christmas.com and some other groups dedicated to keeping Christ in Christmas, if only in name, go after them. This year, in an attempt to cover their bases, they decided to trash every religious belief, so they wouldn't be accused of disrespecting any one particular group. Over the years, Sears has done it; Costco has done it; Target has done it, J.C. Penny's has done it (I canceled my JC Penny's credit card after over 30 years because of this, and my Target credit card, and when I wrote in my letter to them the reason I was can-celing, I never heard a word from JC Penny's or Target.), all your major regional department stores, and just about every major retailer in the country has tried to take Christ out of Christmas at one time or another. Their excuse, if ever they give one, is they don't want to offend non-Christians. Duh! Christmas is a Christian holiday. They are raking in big bucks from us for Christmas gifts. What about offending Christians? As one of our Secretaries of State said a few years ago, "Bigotry against Christians and Jews cannot be considered a hate crime." This country was founded as a Christian country. While we want to respect our brothers and sisters who are not Christian, we can't give away our faith beliefs because of them. I often wonder why these retailers do this; intentionally take Christmas out of their Christmas advertising. Is it arrogance on their part? Are they telling us that they don't need to honor Christmas in order to do Christmas business? It doesn't seem to make sense, be-cause they really are the ones getting hurt in the long run. But is it worth it to them to disrespect us and our Faith belief?
OKAY - Then about the 2nd week of December, when the stores are being boycotted by us Christians, and the sales figures are plummeting, and they are desperate for business, some of them get the message and change their advertising strategy, and plaster Christmas all over the place. Then American Family Association and Save-Christmas.com and the other defenders of Christmas send out notices to stop the boycott; the offending retailer has repented. And so we all run to those retailers and make their Christmas figures. Then the next year, they start out all over again, disrespecting us and the cycle continues.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE??
We are rewarding them for their really bad behavior. Why should we do that? It's obvious why they changed their tune. It's because enough of us decided to make them pay for their stand against Christ and Christmas, by not buying from them. Well, this year, when whatever group tells you it's okay to buy from the offending retailer because they have changed their advertising, do something different. DON'T BUY FROM THEM! Let them suffer this year, and see how they start out their Christmas sales campaign next year. And if they start out badly again next year, use your American franchise to boycott. And don't give in when they change their advertising for next year. Let them know we are serious. I got this idea from American Family Association. When Gap agreed to take out their terrible commercial and change their advertising for this year, AFA asked "Should we stop the boycott because they finally changed their advertising? Or should we continue the boycott because what they did was not enough." I took the poll. The results were 367 in favor of any kind of Christmas advertising, and 3767 were opposed to anything other than respectful advertising.
BUT DON'T GET ME WRONG. I DON'T WANT TO BE MEAN!
Please believe me; I don't want anyone to suffer. I know what it's like to have a store full of merchandise and no one coming in to buy it. I don't want our stores to suffer. I want them to sell Christmas gifts until their shelves are empty, and they go home to their families and enjoy a beautiful Christmas with them. I only ask one thing. Give credit where credit is due. Jesus is the reason for the season. If our retailers can't or won't shout out to the rooftops, as they should, proclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord, and He is giving them that gift of finishing out their year on a successful note, at least allow their customers, the ones who are putting the money into their cash registers, the gift of seeing the word Christmas in their advertising. Jesus is worth it. Have a beautiful spirit-filled Christmas. We love you.
Author Resource:
Bob and Penny Lord are renowned Catholic authors and television hosts on EWTN, Global Catholic television. They are prolific writers about the Catholic faith, especially the Saints for which they have been dubbed "experts on the Saints." Their website is http://www.bobandpennylord.com
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