Advent has just started, but the war over Christmas is already underway, and for the most part, it appears that Christmas is winning. In New York, it’s a battle of billboards. In Philadelphia, battle over a word. Retailers, meanwhile are increasingly embracing “Christmas” in their advertising and promotions.
In New York, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has sponsored a Christmas billboard outside the Lincoln Tunnel in response to a Christmas-debunking billboard sponsored by American Atheists.
The battling billboards are posted on opposite sides of the Lincoln Tunnel. The Catholic League’s billboard is on the New York side. The American Atheists billboard is on the New Jersey side.
The Catholic League-sponsored billboard features a nativity scene and the words: “You Know It’s Real: This Season Celebrate Jesus.” The American Atheists-sponsored billboard reads: “You know it’s a myth. This season, celebrate reason!”
The Catholic League obtained a $18,500 anonymous donation to purchase the 26 x 24-foot billboard space for the month of December.
“Jesus historically lived, there’s no doubt about that,” said Joseph Zwilling, director of communications for the Archdiocese of New York. “He was a real person in a real time, and for Catholics and Christians we believe he was the son of God.”
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, they’ve been literally battling over the Word, or at least a variation of the Word. For the past three years, German American Marketing, Inc. has put up a German Christmas Village at City Hall. On Nov. 30, not long after the “Christmas Village” sign went up, the word “Christmas” was removed in favor of the word “Holiday.”
Thomas Bauer, of German American Marketing, Inc. said that the action was taken in response to city managing director Richard Negrin’s concerns. Negrin had told Bauer that the city had received complaints.
Three days later, after considerable nationwide media coverage, mayor Michael Nutter decided that the word “Christmas” would be returned.
“If we are to be a truly diverse and inclusive community, we must certainly be respectful of all the various celebrations that occur during this time of year,” said the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in a statement. “Christmas deserves its rightful place among those.”
On the retail side of things, Christmas is being returned as well.
Naughty or Nice?
The American Family Association and the Liberty Counsel typically release annual Naughty and Nice lists of retailers that choose either to not acknowledge or acknowledge Christmas in their Christmas-season advertising.
One surprise from this year is that the “nice” list is longer than the “naughty” list, a sign that some say indicates that the list positively motivates retailers to acknowledge Christmas.
In years past, for example, retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Best Buy have found themselves on the “naughty” list for promoting “Holiday Trees” and encouraging employees to use neutral “holiday” greetings with customers. This year those retailers are on the “nice” list.
Other notable changes include the addition of Dick’s Sporting Goods, Disney, and AC Moore Arts & Crafts to the “nice” list.
On the “naughty” list are retailers such as Staples, Radio Shack, Gap, J. Crew, American Eagle Outfitters, and Old Navy.
The American Family Association says that over the past five years, it has seen the percentage of retailers acknowledging Christmas rise from 20 percent to 80 percent.
That’s a trend that’s also been noticed by the National Retail Federation (NRF).
“We see the word Christmas being used much more this year than three of four years ago,” said Ellen Davis, vice president at the NRF. “The pendulum seems to have swung back.”
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The first part of this article I can get behind a hundred percent. The American Atheist billboard makes me alternately laugh and want to cry. And I’m on board with saying that “holiday trees” is absurd. The rest of it, though, I’m not so sure I’m ready to get behind. First of all, not all employees are Christian; forcing them to say “merry Christmas” isn’t fair, and I say this as a Catholic who says “merry Christmas” to everyone without blinking. I don’t believe that God wants us to force people to feign belief and make a hollow mockery of belief by holding people hostage with fear of losing employment. It actually disrespects religion and the name of the celebration! ... And in that vein, I don’t give a hoot if major retailers acknowledge Christmas or not. One of the biggest problems for us is that Christmas has gotten way, way too tied to consumerism. Why would I actively encourage that connection? I’m HAPPY not to see the celebration of the coming of Christ used in the same sentence as “Clearance sale on socks!” or some nonsense like that.
But in the end, the Catholic League and the Allied Atheists’ Alliance (new name : more rational : this way it has three As) decided to settle their differences with a good old “Yo mama so fat” contest. Which was almost an improvement compared to their previous way of debating.
“First of all, not all employees are Christian; forcing them to say “merry Christmas” isn’t fair, and I say this as a Catholic who says “merry Christmas” to everyone without blinking. I don’t believe that God wants us to force people to feign belief and make a hollow mockery of belief by holding people hostage with fear of losing employment.”
I happen to work for one of those “once on the naughty list” retailers. We COULD NOT SAY (at the point of possible dismissal (i.e. fired)) “Merry Christmas.”
So if I or someone else “slipped” and said “Merry Christmas” and someone heard and complained—well, it would not be a very merry holiday.
Now, saying “Merry Christmas” will no longer get you fired, but we are “highly encouraged” to say the “Happy Holidays” to all.
It seems to me that if you are a non-Christian owner or manager of a store that sells Christmas products or gifts, you should be thrilled to say “Merry Christmas”; and non-Christian employees should be thrilled to say “Merry Christmas”, too, because without Christmas, they wouldn’t have that job.
I have no problem saying “Happy Hannukah” to the few Jews I have known.
How is the greeting “Merry Christmas” anymore offensive to a non-Christian than a Jewish greeting to a Jew by a Christian? It has nothing to do with the belief of the greeter. It has everything to do with recognizing the belief of the one greeted and/or the time of the season. And if the greeted one is not a Christian, it would only be a small person who could not recognize the season for what it stands for by so many. Political correctness and personal offences have gotten way out of reason and it is time that we all step back and relax a little. Good article Tim.
This ‘war on christmas’ is a Fox News annual event that has taken root. It starts the day after Thanksgiving. It is so stupid. Who possibly cares about this?
Oh, you can get a tree ornament over at the “GOP Store”
http://www.gopstore.com/cgi-bin/rnc/LTD104
Why does the GOP hate Christmas? Its not on the naughty list!
When someone takes the time to comment on an article it means two things. One, said individual must an interest in the topic at hand or they would not have read the article to begin with, and two, in order to comment on that article they must have had some kind of response to what the article is saying. Whether the writer agrees with what is said, or disagrees it stands to reason that its a waste of time without first being interested.
It is also a more that a little preposterous to say that only Fox News covers this “event” because if you look on any news station, or website you are sure to see something about it. in this case both sides are trying to get their way, and until there is some kind of compromise this will continue.
I followed the link and it’s great to see the nice list longer than the naughty one.
The War on Christmas is REAL, and I’m glad that Fox News reports it and that I can read about it here as well.
I don’t shop at places that refuse to use Merry Christmas in their advertising.
If the joint wants my money for Christmas presents, it better mention Christmas.
I’m Catholic and I love Christmas; I wrote a letter to the American Atheists and am currently in a back-and-forth with their communications director (that’s a separate story, but whoa, my friends - that group is really militant with no apology and it’s scary). I read articles all the time about how kids in public schools are humiliated for writing essays about the birth of the baby Jesus or drawing pictures of the nativity, and it upsets me greatly. I’ll call superintendents, I’ll start letter writing campaigns, you name it. That said, however, I’m still surprised that I’m the only commenter who doesn’t get upset when there’s not some grand crossover between Christmas and corporations trying every slick thing they can to sell, sell, sell. It actually makes me more queasy to see Christ’s name written above a row of mannequins in sexy lingerie (and every mall I’ve been in has at least one store like that) than if they just didn’t mention my Savior at all. I’m not a mother yet, but I am a teacher, and I see it as an enormous challenge to disentangle a child’s idea of Christmas out from under all of the marketing. I’m just surprised I seem alone on this. Christmas is not about selling things; selling things is not about Christmas.
Its kind of odd, we didn’t see these type of debates in the early church at all in the Bible. It’s interesting that none of the apostles seemed to mention or celebrate Christmas. I wonder when and why the Christmas season started all along? Maybe the whole point was to take a pagan holiday, put it nowhere near the estimated birth of Christ and use it to sell more stuff. Weird that so many of the department stores are still on the naughty list. It would stand to reason they should have better advertising departments than that….
Insyderznf: “It’s interesting that none of the apostles seemed to mention or celebrate Christmas.”
Perhaps the reason that they didn’t “celebrate Christmas” was that for the first 300 years, Christians were hunted and persecuted and were able to celebrate Mass in secret, only in underground catacombs or private homes. During that period, all the Popes were martyred, along with thousands of bishops, priests and countless numbers of the faithful.
And we don’t know that they didn’t celebrate Jesus’ birth. Most of those records from that period, if they were even kept, because that would have been an illegal, incriminating act, probably did not survive.
Many cultures even up until recent times, did not celebrate birthdays. Celebrating their patron saint’s feast day (the saint for whom they were named) was common in Eastern European countries). I would imagine that to the early Christians, the day they were baptized was extremely important.
Very interesting post from Ray Marshall.
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