I'd been waiting for the first "ban on Christmas" story of the year to come out, but, instead, came across this:
This holiday season, Wal-Mart isn't trumpeting big bargains only. It's also bringing "Christmas" back into its marketing, after several years of playing down the term.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Christmas cheer seems to be a hot trend this season as several other retailers including Kohl's Corp. and Macy's, a division of Federated Department Stores Inc., are also stepping up their Christmas marketing. The moves respond to mounting criticism from religious groups that staged boycotts against Wal-Mart and other merchants after they eliminated or de-emphasized "Christmas" in their advertising.
It's nice to see the message from consumers has finally gotten through. We don't celebrate generic holidays. We celebrate Christmas. And Christmas shouldn't be a bad word because even atheists celebrate Christmas (although without the "Christ" part, presumably).
Maybe it was all the bad "holiday" publicity of the last few years that did the trick. If so, I'm glad. I couldn't have taken one more "holiday party," "holiday greeting," or the ever noxious "holiday tree" display.
Not everyone has gotten the message, though.
"We are going to continue to use the term holiday because there are several holidays throughout that time period, and we certainly need to be respectful of all of them," said Dawn Bryant, a spokeswoman at Best Buy Co. Inc., whose advertising omits any reference to Christmas.
Yes, Dawn, it's understandable that you want to be so respectful of other religions, especially if it gets you a big Christmas--er, holiday bonus.
|