Commercially Speaking, it's the Reason for the Season
In the way of example, the American Family Association reviewed advertising inserts from 11 major retailers. As the AFA discovered, ten of the companies failed to mention the word “Christmas” at all. These companies included Target, Kroger, Office Max, Walgreens, Sears, Staples, Lowe’s, J.C. Penney, Dell and Best Buy.
These retailers have commercialized Christmas for decades. They are the very ones that exploit it for their own gain. This is to be expected. What is troubling is that they do so in such a disrespectful manner. As commentator John Boykin argued on National Public Radio, Jesus “was not born to be the patron saint of fourth-quarter earnings.”
Like any reasonable business person, I tend to refrain from dabbling in topics involving race and religion. As a regional business publication serving Missouri and Kansas we stay focused on general business issues and trends of interest to our loyal readers in this area. This holiday season, however, a national trend has begun to irritate even an apolitical person like me, and I suspect that it may be irritating you as well.
It appears that this Christmas season has generated less interest in the concept of “Christmas” than perhaps any Christmastime before. If you haven’t noticed, there’s an active movement among retailers throughout America to remove the very use of the word “Christmas” from their Christmas, sorry, “Holiday” promotions.
In the way of example, the American Family Association reviewed advertising inserts from 11 different major retailers. These inserts had 280 combined pages. As the AFA discovered, ten of the companies failed to mention the word “Christmas” at all. These companies included Target, Kroger, Office Max, Walgreens, Sears, Staples, Lowe’s, J.C. Penney, Dell and Best Buy.
These retailers have commercialized Christmas for decades. They are the very ones that exploit it for their own gain. This is to be expected. What is troubling is that they do so in such a disrespectful manner. As commentator John Boykin argued on National Public Radio, Jesus “was not born to be the patron saint of fourth-quarter earnings.”
A Honda television commercial also gets under my skin. Sung to the tune of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” it substitutes the words, “We Wish You a Happy Holiday,” before dissolving into “We Wish You a Honda Holiday.” Thanks, Japan!
I’m not exactly sure what happened to create this wave of disrespect for Christmas and why “Holiday Season” has replaced it among so many retailers, but it is frankly very inappropriate and upsetting.
There is a tendency among some retailers to claim sensitivity to Jews in particular, but it was Irving Berlin who wrote “White Christmas” and David Sarnoff who made the “Christmas Show” at Radio City—and it is still called just that—a national tradition. America’s Jews have long respected the Christmas tradition. They are not the cause of this cold shoulder. Besides, more than 80% of the American public describe themselves as Christians. Why is it acceptable to insult them?
If nothing else, Christmas is a national holiday and has been since 1870 when President U.S. Grant signed a law making it so for all American citizens. That’s why even atheists take the day off. And those of you who like to cite the 14th Amendment as the reason why we must have rigorous separation of church and state, Grant’s designation came five years after the amendment was passed. No one told him or the people who passed it that separation was what the amendment was about.
Of course, too, commercial Christmas suppression has nothing to do with government. Why the small-town centric Wal-Mart, for instance, would of its own accord stiff arm Christmas defies all imagination, especially since it has provoked groups like the Catholic League into organizing boycotts against it.
But no, it is not fair to say that Wal-Mart has “banned” Christmas. “As an employer,” wrote a Wal-Mart PR honcho to the Catholic League, presumably with a straight face, “we recognize the significance of the Christmas holiday among our family of associates ... and close our stores in observance, the only day during the year that we are closed.”
Heck, even Ebenezer Scrooge closed his office on Christmas day. Big deal!
I think it’s important to preserve the significance of Christmas and each religious holy day of the year. Perhaps if concerned citizens would boycott retailers and other businesses that blatantly disrespect religious holidays and their meaning, then we should shock them to their senses by not patronizing their interests. This may, in fact, be happening right now.
Next season, I suspect, the retailer that remembers Christmas and respects it is the retailer that will have a very good holiday season indeed.
Editor-In-Chief & Publisher
jsweeney@ingramsonline.com
Regards,
Editor-In-Chief & Publisher
Editorial@IngramsOnLine.com