Christians are now organizing a boycott against businesses that fail to wish everyone “Merry Christmas” or use that offensive greeting “Happy Holidays.” Stores are being monitored and blacklisted for just wishing everyone “Happy Holidays” instead of referencing Christmas specifically.
The site www.standforchristmas.com is listing businesses on whether they are naughty or nice on using Christmas in greetings.
The group listed companies by whether they are “friendly,” “negligent,” or “offensive” in the use of such terms as Happy Holidays or Season’s Greetings instead of Merry Christmas.
The group explains in a standard letter:
“Yet, the trend is pervasive to preempt “Christmas” with generic terms like “holiday” or belabored
euphemisms like “Merry gift-giving” – and especially among retailers.”
The group says that it can accept signs reading Happy Holidays if they also include Merry Christmas.
However, the legions of Christmas inspectors report on stores that are light on Christ with such reviews as this one:
Comment Date: Nov 24 2009 10:29 PM
Rating: Christmas-Offensive
Comment: I’ve received Kohls advertisements, have seen the ads on TV and stopped in the store in Pasadena, TX. None of these have had the word Christmas anywhere. The TV ads seem to specifically avoid any mention of Christmas – they show snow flakes and talk about giving the right gift, etc. They also do not mention the typical “Happy Holidays” as if to make it ok, but this is offensive in itself. Not only will I not shop Kohls at Christmas, but will not shop there at any other time.
Another reported the following violation:
Comment Date: Nov 28 2009 10:29 AM
Rating: Christmas-Negligent
Comment: The clerk was friendly, but said, “Happy Holidays” when I was leaving.
Of course, Christ himself tended to be a little less into the whole shopping part of the holidays.
King James Bible
And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
One makes sense. The other does not.
As you say, free will is not the equivalent of rational.
Gyges:
I dont disagree but people are free to boycott or not boycott. the reason is immaterial. If I was a store I would say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
Someone always has an axe to grind. What is the difference between boycotting a store because they dont say merry C or they do?
Byron,
I second Buddha and Gyges statements. I will also tell you something else. The wealthy banks targeted the poor. They even hired ministers (some of whom were made loan officers) to preach the gospel of prosperity and to talk up loans from the bank. They told people who trusted them that these loans were safe. The banks lied about payments, interest and income. That behavior should not be O.K. with anyone.
Many poor pay taxes, they most certainly pay sales tax in most states. If you only want to feel for the middle class I’m not going to argue with that. The middle class is getting screwed. So let me rephrase what I said above. Christians are commanded by Christ to serve the poor (middle class). Jesus never told anyone to go and buy a bunch of stuff and demand that anyone they buy it from say, “Merry Christmas”. How pathetic that this is what Christianity has become, the demand that consumer goods be purchased with the “correct” greeting attached to the purchase. Can you imagine how powerful it would be for these same people to get together and protest the impoverishment of the middle class by the wealthy? That would be a revolution.
bUDDHA:
if we are talking the fees then you are correct. The mortgage was rent they would have had to pay anyway, maybe a little higher I admit.
There were a good many middle class people that did the same thing. I hate to admit it but it was all about trying to make money on a false premise, namely the idea that we would have low interest rates and ever increasing property values in perpetuity.
And what really pisses me off is that it was done to finance the war. Interest rates were kept artificially low for this purpose.
Byron,
We’re on the same side with this, you’re just looking at it backwards.
If this story was about a boycott against stores that say “Merry Christmas” I’d be saying very similar things as you. That’s not what it’s about though, it’s about a boycott of stores that don’t say Merry Christmas. It’s punishing companies for not participating in a ritual in the exact way that a certain subset of the culture wants them to.
Look it’s not like the stores aren’t already milking the Christmas season for all it’s worth. Look at the images they use, look at the slogans they use, their advertising for a solid month is all about Christmas. They are celebrating Christmas, just not in the exact way that these people want.
These are the tactics of a spoiled child, who throws a fit because their Mom put their favorite sandwich in front of them cut in half on the diagonal instead of from left to right.
They took from the poor by pushing bank deregulation that allowed them to offer sub-prime mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them and shouldn’t have been given one in the first place.
That should be self-evident.
Jill:
exactly how did the rich take from the poor in the mortgage problem? Seems to me they took from the middle class tax payers.
Byron,
You wrote: “I know it is ok to not say Merry Christmas and I also know that Christmas was a pagan holiday.
I just think what is sauce for the gander is also sauce for the goose.
I have a feeling if everybody just lived and let lived things would be whole lot easier.”
I don’t understand whay you mean by sauce for the gander/goose comment so if you could expand on that I’d appreciate it.
As to your last point, I completely agree. That is exactly what a boycott of stores who won’t do what Christians want contradicts. A boycott cannot be called a live and let live. When Christianity focused on social justice they would have boycotted the banking industry for taking from the poor and giving to the rich. They would have stood in front of the homes of bankers, fat on taxpayer money, throwing people from their homes. This boycott shows how far fundamentalists have come from any real idea of what it means to be a Christian–helping the poor.
As a matter of set theory, the only appropriate choice is actually “Happy Holidays”.
hol·i·day \ˈhä-lə-ˌdā, British usually ˈhä-lə-dē\, n., Etymology: Middle English, from Old English hāligdæg, from hālig holy + dæg day
Date: before 12th century
1 : holy day
2 : a day on which one is exempt from work; specifically : a day marked by a general suspension of work in commemoration of an event
3 chiefly British : vacation —often used in the phrase on holiday —often used in plural
4 : a period of exemption or relief
Since there are several holidays – by definition and multiple cultural traditions – that fall around the same time of year, the most inclusive set would be “Happy Holidays”. If Christmas WASN’T a holiday, I could see being upset. Since it IS a holiday, it’s like getting mad because someone said, “Nice shoes” instead of “Nice Brand X shoes”.
Zealotry knows no logic.
What about the war on Thanksgiving? I had someone wish me “Happy Holidays” last month instead of “Happy Thanksgiving”. Let’s put the “Christ” back in “Thankschristgiving”!
last Christmas, the actual day, not the seemingly endless season, for the first time in 35 years working with the public, I said Merry Christmas to someone I didn’t know. The father just smiled, nodded and walked away. I looked over at his son who was still standing there and he winked at me and said “we’re Jewish”
Christmas fail
I laughed my ass off all day
Gyges/Jill:
I know it is ok to not say Merry Christmas and I also know that Christmas was a pagan holiday.
I just think what is sauce for the gander is also sauce for the goose.
I have a feeling if everybody just lived and let lived things would be whole lot easier.
Why cant you just have all types of religious holiday displays in the public square? That is what the Virginia Statute on Religious freedom is all about. It is not about prosecuting/persecuting one religion or another.
I like Christmas, yes it is a holiday but it is also Christmas. This political correctness BS is just way out of hand. For Christ sake say it all, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Eid, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Nothingness, Merry Huckleberry, Happy Buddhism, Merry Jain, Happy Hindi. And if I forgot to mention a couple it was not on purpose.
This kind of thing just sucks the life out of everything it touches. My guess is that because Christmas is such a tool of the running dog capitalist pigs it must be destroyed.
Except the candy ass part.
BTW, if you are wondering . . .
That link about the WH cards is to a humor column. Not to be taken seriously.
AY,
No, bdaman couldn’t get me down if he had an army of clones behind him. He’s a pest sure, but he’s more in the roach category than the coyote category. It’s the simply staggering display of savagery by my fellow homo sapiens that has me down. I say homo sapiens because I don’t think “human” is an accurate description of their behavior.
And more on point to the thread . . .
Obama to let Congress decide if WH Xmas cards say “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas”.
1) Not all of your consitutients are Christian.
2) Kurtzman. Still the law until you get Roberts to declare this a Christian theocracy.
3) Candy ass. Make your own call. Oh, I keep forgetting. You’re under orders from industry.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lanham/obama-to-let-congress-dec_b_381966.html
So Buddha,
Bdaman got you down today?
I’d rather we give up our liberty to wish someone ‘Merry Christmas’ than, say, the liberty to fly without having your balls fondled?
And who’s still merry anyway?! First one I see is getting a couple of black eyes to empathize with the rest of humanity, probably should take your money too.
I have a short naughty list. These are the top four headlines on HuffPo’s World section, 12/9/09.
‘EXTRAJUDICIAL’ FORCE
Report: Brazil Police Killed More Than 11,000 People
WATCH Interview With A Taliban-Trained Suicide Bomber: ‘I Would Blow Up My Own Family’
Uganda Considering Death Penalty For Gays
Mexican Army Accused Of Torture By Amnesty International
Bob, normally I’d argue against your blanket assertions about man and the slime he evolved from.
Not today.
Elaine M.,
As a matter of fact the state of Massachusetts made it a criminal act to specifically close on December 25th unless it fell on a Sunday. I read that in a book called in search of Christmas past a few years back.