Wal Mart Puts Christmas Back In Christmas

[dilloduck]

Because this holiday's name is "Christmas". Why call it anything else?

I'm sure that if Jews were identifiable as Jews that some clerks would go so far as to say "Happy Hannukah" instead of Happy Holidays. Imagine that !
Christians deserve tolerance too or have they had thier glory days and now must take a back seat on one of the most holy days of thier religious calender?

 

[red states rule]

What Happened to Christmas and History?


REMARKS TO THE
R-12 SCHOOL BOARD
SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI
By Dee Wampler
December 13, 2005

I am Dee Wampler and once served as the elected Greene County Prosecuting Attorney.* I understand the stress and often thankless hours you spend working on school issues. You are appreciated!

I address this School Board about two things:

(1) The fact that "Christmas" has been removed from the official school calendar and;

(2) The increased editing of our American History and Social Studies books omitting mention of the faith of our Founding Fathers.

There is great confusion in our day regarding the relationship of church and state. Some have bought the idea that religion is not to be a part of any educational system, confident that it requires a total strict separation so that Biblical principles must never be mentioned.

This so-called "strict separation of church and state" has never been the law, it is not now, and it never will be in the future.

There are hundreds of examples of God, Jesus Christ, Christianity and religion in general in our nation's monuments, documents, and laws.

Just to give you a few examples, God's name is in our National Anthem, the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Liberty Bell, the Pledge of Allegiance, and our national motto is on every single coin and bill in your pocket which is "In God We Trust."

There are some who believe that religion and government must be "ruthlessly separate" and all symbols of faith be erased - a sort of "religious cleansing"- that our monuments from the crosses at Arlington to the Washington and Lincoln Memorials should be sandblasted.

The United States Supreme Court has nullified the idea of a total separation of church and state.1 There has always been an "accommodation" between religion and government and we must never forsake our national traditions and history.




I. Christmas

Some years ago2 the word "Christmas" was removed from the R-12 School calendar. "Easter" or "Good Friday" was also removed.
I believe it is utterly ridiculous that the word "Christmas" has been removed from the calendar. It is time to put it back. Christmas should be called what it is! It is recognized by Federal Statute as an official federal holiday.3 Christmas is a most outstanding fact in the history of the world. For 2000 years Christmas has been a celebration of peace on earth, good will towards all men; to stop and reflect on the birth of a person that altered the course of history. Our calendar is dated from His birth. We have no reason to be ashamed of the birth of Christ. Our nation was not based on freedom from anything religious.

There is not one single federal or state court case that has ever once ruled that a school board is wrong by calling Christmas "Christmas".4

When the former School Board changed its calendar, I believe (using the words of the U.S. Supreme Court) that it was an "overreaction contrary to our history".5


II. American History

Many of our public school books may have been originally published in the 1950s and 1960s; as you know, they are regularly edited and updated. Our school books have gradually lost any focus on the faith of our Founding Fathers. "God", "Christianity", or "religion" are rarely mentioned or not even mentioned at all.6
Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving are not even mentioned in several of the books. In only one book Thanksgiving is mentioned but there is no reference of giving thanks to God.

The Bible has been removed as the authoritative source for determining right from wrong; prayer is outlawed; the Ten Commandments became offensive; the mention of Jesus Christ became taboo; but when Christmas became politically incorrect enough is enough!

Please! I am asking you to not give in to the absolutist view that any mention of God or religion must be sanitized from the calendar and school books.

Our students are being cheated out of a true American history, sacrificed upon the altar of political correctness.7 Let us resist efforts to redefine or surrender our national tradition. If our children are going to make informed decisions about the future of our nation, they need to know about its past.

Pass a Resolution now to restore our traditional greatest national holiday on the official calendar!

Thank you for your consideration.

http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/2006/jan06/christmas-history.html

 

[nukeman]

I actually do take a "merry christmas" in the spirit it's given and I don't find it offensive. But I do appreciate it more when people wish me a happy holiday. I think it's more considerate. And I might be part of the 11%, but I guess I don't understand why Happy Holiday, which is inclusive, as opposed to exclusive, would be offensive to anyone.

I think the point of the argument is that a number of large corporate stores in the US would have a sign wishing everyone a Happy Hanukha, Happy Kwanza, or even a happy winter solstice but Christmas was left out intentionaly and replaced with "Happy Holidays" Why do you think that is?? The whole point of Happy Holidays was to be inclusive of ALL holidays yet stores like Wal-Mart and Target continued to display the other holidays but no mention of Christmas.

So Happy holidays was not to be inclusive of all holidays but to exclude Christmas. Which is a holiday practiced by almost 90% of the people in the US.

This mind set of inclusion by exclusion of the Christian faith has spilled over into the educational system and legal system in the US. That my dear is completely unacceptable and flat out wrong.

To answer your question "Happy Holidays is not offensive by itself. In fact I use it all the time but I will also wish people a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukha or whatever, I dont EXCLUDE One holiday to build up others and that jillian is the major problem 90% of the people in the US have with this type of censorship

 

[red states rule]

Jingo Bell Crock
Shiver me timbers and jigger me with a yule log, the Holiday Season is upon us once again and the whole city is aglow with decorations. It seems like only yesterday that Peaceblossom and I bundled ourselves up in our matching hemp sweaters and took a long, romantic stroll through the neighborhood, singing "Jingo Bell Crock" at the top of our lungs and kicking over nativity scenes. Ah, the memories! I can still recall the delicious, teary-eyed look of dumbstruck horror on that crazy geezer's face as I punted Baby Jeezus across her front lawn.


"STOP RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE NOW!" I shouted at the shriveled old zealot.

"GO BACK TO JESUS LAND, YOU DOGMA-SPEWING FASCIST!" Peaceblossom chimed in as she merrily stomped the three wise men into the dirt.

"Lawrence Engels Chomstein, you little BASTARD!" Gramma cried. "I'm calling the police!"

Goddess, I miss her. It's so hard to get into the holiday spirit without her around. Peaceblossom, that is. I long for the good ol' days when we were still a team, standing up to religious fanaticism wherever we found it. I sure could have used Peace by my side Saturday, when I ran smack into the very same sort of ugly, blind hatred that Gramma displayed for her very own grandson last Christmas.

With the Blog Awards less than a week away, I had planned to spend all weekend at the public library, frantically voting. But when I walked in the main entrance, all my hopes and dreams were brutally shattered by the great, big, aluminum baseball bat of reality. Before me, in all it's obscene splendor, stood what I will one day describe to my grandchildren as a "Christmas Tree". Decked out in crudely crafted ornaments, stringed popcorn garnish, and sneering gingerbread men, it was as if my all worst nightmares had somehow come to life. The final kick in the crotch was perched daintily atop the vile monstrosity: a single yellow construction-paper star signifying the horrific event that led to 2000 years of genocide and opression in the name of religion.

I couldn't breathe. The room spun around me. How could this be? Had the whole world gone mad? I thought the King County Master Librarian issued a Fatwah banning Christmas trees from the libraries. I thought he was one of the good guys! Didn't he care at all about the feelings of non-Christians who might walk in and see that horrific fungus staring back at them?

For a long time I just stood there, gazing with disbelief and disgust at its sheer naked depravity. Then, the floodgates burst wide open and out poured years of pent-up rage over religious opression in the form of a high-pitched, girlish scream. I screamed and screamed and screamed some more. I screamed for a good five minutes, yet drew only looks of mild annoyance. When I realized that no one was going to come running over in truckling response to my feminine hysterics, I screamed even louder. Finally, a bespectacled little rat-faced librarian idled over and tugged at my sleeve.


"Sir," she wheezed. "The P.E.S.T. group therapy session is being held in the library auditorium, through the double-doors and past the big pile of spent kleenex."

I stopped screaming and jabbed a finger furiously at the giant Tree of Hate.

"What is THAT?" I demanded.

"It's a Christmas tree," she answered hesitantly.

"In a public building? HAVEN'T YOU EVER HEARD OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT?""Yes, but it's sort of a library tradition," she explained. "Local cub scouts decorate it every year with ornaments they made by hand. People can bid on the decorations and the proceeds goes to charity. It's really a nice thing."

I didn't know what was more infuriating: The way she proudly admitted that the Hitler Youth were responsible for this obscenity, or how she actually believed that offending people in the name of some bogus charity actually justifies the crime.

"A nice thing?" I spat. "A NICE THING? What about the Jewish kid who saunters in, suddenly discovers that we're celebrating a Christian holiday, and becomes so offended that he claws his own eyes out in shame? Is that a 'nice thing'? What about the poor homeless man who comes in out of the cold to surf child porn in a warm, welcoming environment, but is instead accosted by a 10-foot icon of exclusion? Is a that a 'nice thing'? And what about the gay couple who visits the library to check out Eminem's latest CD, but is greeted at the door by the scowling symbol of a religious faith that doesn't accept or celebrate their lifestyle? Is it a 'nice thing' that they become targets of physical violence because a group of knot-tying nazi larvae want to maintain their tax exempt status? Don't you have any regard for the feelings of others? HAVE YOU NO COMPASSION?"

"Well, actually, we haven't received any complaints from..."

"Oh, but of course not," I cut her off. "Who's going to lodge a complaint about the burning cross on their front lawn when all the cops are in the Klan? People are too terrified to complain."

"Terrified of a tree?"

"Absolutely! It may appear to be just a harmless plant, but if you give these evangelical's an inch, they'll take a mile. Today, it's a Christmas Tree in the library lobby. Tomorrow, Santa Claus will be burning heretics on your front steps. That's why George Jefferson wrote the wall between church and state right into the Constitution - so that no one should ever have to feel insulted or threatened by large, brightly festooned conifers. Libraries especially should be places where people of all faiths can go without fear of being offended or excluded, except for Christians but they'll just have to learn to live with it. The biblethumping Whos down in Whoville can whine all they want, but Christmas Trees serve only to divide America and turn us against one another, creating conditions ripe for the very same sort of religious dictatorship that our forefathers came here to escape."



She seemed to let it sink in for a moment, then slowly shook her head.

"I disgree, sir," she said. "While it has roots in Christian and Pagan beliefs, the American tradition of Christmas is not so much a religious holiday as a celebration of the human spirit and love for our fellow man. During the Christmas season, Americans are more tolerant of one another, they go out of their way to be nicer to their neighbors, they smile more and spread good cheer. Yes, it IS a "nice thing", and it's a shame that some small-minded jerks want to destroy the only day of the year that people actually try to get along!"

It was then that I realized that the broad was mentally ill, perhaps dangerous. "Human spirit?" Obviously, this lunatic had never been in the mall on December the 24th. I'd like to see how much "good cheer" she'd have left after being beat up by her "fellow man" for the last copy of Halo 2.

I started to slowly back away when I suddenly remembered why I was there in the first place.


"Where are your computers?" I demanded.

"Second floor," she said. "But they're all taken by homeless people surfing child pornography. I can put you on the waiting list..."

"Forget it," I growled, and turned to leave.

"Merry Christmas!" she said to my back.

"Seig Hiel," I replied, and marched out the door.

http://blamebush.typepad.com/blamebush/culture/index.html

 

[red states rule]

Sorry, Mr. P, but Wal-Mart's 180 degree turn-about is news and relevant to many of us. As for the topic in general, when the ACLU ceases trying to stifle the free expression of the true meaning of Christmas, we can happily let the topic fade away.

Best Buy Bans 'Merry Christmas'
Posted by Matthew Sheffield on November 11, 2006 - 16:42.
After years of "holidays" being used to describe the Christmas season, some cracks in the politically correct dam have begun to open as some retailers like Wal-Mart and Macy's are beginning to use the term "Merry Christmas.

Ironically, as the Associated Press reports this news, it can't retrain its political correctness:

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.

"We learned a lesson from that. Merry Christmas is now part of the vocabulary here at Wal-Mart," said Linda Blakley, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman.

Wal-Mart said Thursday that it will launch its first Christmas-specific TV ad in several years, feature Christmas shops, previously called Holiday Shops, and increase the number of seasonal merchandise labeled "Christmas" instead of "holiday" by 60 percent.

Macy's is adding Christmas signage in all of its department stores and Kohl's is playing up Christmas this year in its TV, print and radio advertising, according to Vicki Shamion, a Kohl's spokeswoman.
http://newsbusters.org/node/9030

 

[Mr.Conley]

You know it's not even Thanksgiving yet and they're already rolling out the Christmas advertizing in New Orleans? It's really sickening. Talk about cheapening the holiday. At this rate pretty soon people will be lighting up their Christmas trees sometime in early July.

 

[red states rule]

People have started their Christmas shopping as well.

Why can't libs celebrate Christmas the way want to - and at the same time - allow others to celebrate Christmas the way they want to?

 

[Mr.Conley]

I'm not surprised people are already out shopping. It's riddiculous. Christmas is still a month and a half away. Give it some time people.

 

[red states rule]

I'm not surprised people are already out shopping. It's riddiculous. Christmas is still a month and a half away. Give it some time people.

So not to offend you, the stores need to ignore the demands of their customers?

This is the time of year where for some stores their entire profit for the year will be determined

 

[mattskramer]

So a private business decides to downplay the term “Christmas”. Then, after some consumer pressure, it decides to up-play the term “Christmas”. Big deal. I regularly shop at Walmart and I didn’t even notice the lack of the term “Christmas” last year. It is just a another example of busy-body Christians getting so easily offended and wanting to be sure everyone knows about their “Christmas”.

All that I have to say about that is: Whether you are a Christian (Merry Christmas), or Muslim (Salam), or Jew (Shalom), or Atheist (Season’s Greetings), or any other religion – may whatever belief you have bring you peace and happiness this time of year and all the year through.

 

[red states rule]

So a private business decides to downplay the term “Christmas”. Then, after some consumer pressure, it decides to up-play the term “Christmas”. Big deal. I regularly shop at Walmart and I didn’t even notice the lack of the term “Christmas” last year. It is just a another example of busy-body Christians getting so easily offended and wanting to be sure everyone knows about their “Christmas”.

All that I have to say about that is: Whether you are a Christian (Merry Christmas), or Muslim (Salam), or Jew (Shalom), or Atheist (Season’s Greetings), or any other religion – may whatever belief you have bring you peace and happiness this time of year and all the year through.

Liberal Reasons Not to Celebrate Christmas


I am a liberal. I do not celebrate Christmas. This isn’t because I awoke one morning to find a green-skinned, evil-smiling, finger-drumming Grinch in my mirror. On the contrary, I still celebrate the season's high festivity and generosity, but on a different date (the Winter Solstice, usually December 21), and with a different set of customs.

The reasons I’ve rejected Christmas are economic, environmental, social and religious. The fact is, Christmas today has become a thoroughly illiberal event, at odds with everything that liberals stand for.

The economic reasons


Polls show that many people believe Christmas has become too commercialized. It should be a time of family celebration, friendship, spirituality and reflection. Unfortunately, almost all methods of celebrating Christmas nowadays require spending money.

So great is the social pressure to spend that 44 percent of all Americans feel they spend too much on Christmas gifts. In 1998, Americans will spend between $160 billion to $200 billion on presents — more than two-thirds the Defense budget! (That’s about $600 to $800 per person.) This doesn’t include the 5 billion Christmas cards, letters and packages that will be sent through the mail. Nor does it include the traveling expenses of nearly 50 million Americans who will travel over 100 miles during the Christmas and New Years holidays.

Few people realize that Christmas produces more income inequality than any other time of year. Wal-Mart is the largest Christmas merchant in America, and it’s not an accident that its founder, Sam Walton, would have been the second richest man in America if he were alive today. (His $55 billion fortune would have put him within inches of Bill Gates’ $58 billion!)

There are two main reasons why Christmas dramatically worsens income inequality. The first is concentrated profits. Everyone may trade wealth at Christmas in the form of gifts, but the profits accrue to the few: namely, retail stores. And not all retail stores, either: a few large stores like Wal-Mart, K-Mart and Target have been taking over the market in the last decade, while smaller stores find themselves increasingly disadvantaged. Much of this has to do with today’s deregulated economy, which makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.

The second reason Christmas causes inequality is the business cycle. Most of us know business cycles by the recurring recessions and recoveries that happen about once a decade. Almost no big businesses fail during recessions, because they have more money and resources to ride them out. However, small businesses don’t — they fail by the hundreds of thousands during recessions, and sprout by the hundreds of thousands during recoveries. In fact, 99.9 percent of all business failures and openings are small businesses. What this means is that, over time, big businesses steadily increase and consolidate their market advantages. This is an important reason for growing income inequality.

Now, it turns out that Christmas also creates a boom and bust cycle, only on a yearly basis. Heightened Christmas spending causes retail stores to make 50 percent of their profits in the last three months of the year. This produces a sales drought in January and February, and weakens the rest of the year as well. Predictably, small business failures mirror this seasonal trend, adding to the nation’s income inequality.

I should point out that a disproportionate share of small business owners are women, minorities and the working poor. It is liberal constituencies who are being hurt by these booms and busts, and this should compel liberals everywhere to spread out their spending over the whole year, especially among small businesses.

There are other economic problems as well. Christmas is replete with market failures (or inefficient allocation of resources). Social custom prevents people from asking others what kind of gifts they want, so they often have no idea of the recipient’s wants, tastes or needs. Suboptimal gifts range from wrong dress sizes to inedible fruitcakes to snowy water balls. This, of course, necessitates the infamous "gift return." As most merchants will concede, post-Christmas stampedes to return gifts often resemble pre-Christmas stampedes to buy them. This market failure represents a significant and tangible cost to society. To solve this problem, more and more people are resorting to gift certificates. But when everyone exchanges gift certificates, they might as well forgo the fiction of gift-giving and buy their presents themselves.

Another market failure is the unacceptably high purchase of single-use items, such as real Christmas trees, gift-wrapping, artificial frost, crepe paper, party favors and the like. Reusable and recyclable merchandise would save society money, but that would hurt the Christmas industry, which is why they don’t market these items.

The environmental reasons


As the last paragraph suggests, using items once and throwing them away incurs not only an economic cost, but an environmental cost as well.

Take Christmas trees. In 1997, Americans cut down 33 million real trees to put up in their homes, enough to cover the state of Rhode Island. In doing so, they spent somewhere between $600 million to $1.1 billion. Our population explosion has reached the point where we now need 1 million acres of land for Christmas tree farms. These farms take the place of wild habitats or, even worse, old-growth forests. Of course, tree farms do not have the biodiversity or habitability that natural land or old-growth forests have. If people must farm this land at all, let it be for food. Likewise, the 100,000 employees of the Christmas tree industry could be put to better use.

As with all big business, there is a Christmas tree lobbyist group, called the National Christmas Tree Association. Part of their public relations effort is to defend their environmental destruction. Real trees, they point out, are biodegradable. And for each tree cut, 2 to 3 seedlings are planted. Furthermore, each acre of growing Christmas trees provides the daily oxygen requirements of 18 people. But all these arguments forget that old-growth forests already do these things on their own — and far better and more abundantly than pesticide-soaked tree farms.

And synthetic trees? Although they are reusable, synthetic trees in fact have an average life span of only six years. They are made from petroleum by-products, are non-biodegradable and will sit in landfills for centuries. Their production requires vast resources and is itself environmentally harmful. And to add insult to injury, a great many artificial trees are produced in China, which brings us to the next objection:

The social reasons


"Made in China" is the label you’ll find on many Christmas trees and most children’s toys. Unfortunately, China frequently uses prison labor to manufacture these goods, and the prisoners are often political dissidents jailed by the Butchers of Tienanmen Square. This doesn’t seem to faze the lobbyists of the U.S. toy industry, who see American children playing with toys produced under Communist tyranny as vital to America’s economic health.

How much does Communist China contribute to America’s Christmas? In the first nine months of 1997, they exported over $450 million in artificial Christmas trees, ornaments, lights and lamps. They further shipped over $2.2 billion in dolls and stuffed toys, 10 times the amount made in America in 1995.

Another social problem with Christmas is stress. Polls routinely show that most Americans consider Christmas to be the most stressful holiday of the year. And the number one irritant of Christmas? Fighting crowds in stores.

Another source of stress is the family reunion. Although we should certainly consider family get-togethers a positive thing, the truth remains that many families are dysfunctional, and reunions only serve to open old wounds. Statistics show that suicide rates remain about average during November and December, but they spike on New Years day, after most people return home and have the first chance to act on their depression. Society could lessen the stress and tension of Christmas and family reunions alike if it did not pressure people to celebrate it with mass consumerism and other frenzied customs.

The religious reasons


Thousands of years before Christianity even appeared, cultures all around the world were celebrating a similar holiday, with many of the traditions that we now associate with Christmas.

What these cultures celebrated was the Winter Solstice, or the shortest day of the year. This usually occurs on December 21. For various reasons, ancient cultures celebrated this holiday at different times in December or early January.

Why did these many cultures celebrate the Winter Solstice? Because from here on the days will get longer and warmer. It is a holiday of optimism, that the sun will win in its battle over darkness. It is also a holiday of rebirth and fertility, for the lengthening sun will eventually allow farmers to plant their crops. Light is an intrinsic part of most of these celebrations, whether it be sunlight, candles, bonfires, Yuletide logs… or today’s Christmas lights. Not for nothing do most cultures start their New Year about this time.

The first evidence that we have of a Solstice celebration is Mesopotamia from 4,000 years ago. Solstice celebrations have been found in every part of the ancient world, from China to Native America.

The Solstice celebration that Christianity drew on was the Roman holiday Saturnalia. During these celebrations, people suspended all work and indulged in great feasts and drinking. They decorated their homes with greenery of all sorts (for greenery was the product of sunlight, of course). This ranged from wreaths made of laurel to trees adorned with candles. Gifts were sometimes exchanged, especially with small children. But the most interesting aspect of the holiday was the reversal of social order. Wars were suspended, quarrels forgotten, debts forgiven. Slaves exchanged places with their masters, and children became head of their families. In fact, the Romans went so far as to crown a mock king — "the Lord of Misrule." The holiday, needless to say, was extremely popular with the people.

In 274 A.D., the Roman Empire was still "pagan" (that is, not yet Christianized). In that year, the Emperor Aurelian proclaimed that December 25 would be the birthday of the "Invincible Sun."

In 336 A.D., Emperor Constantine Christianized this holiday, proclaiming it to be the birthday of Jesus. The date is almost certainly wrong; the Bible doesn’t say when Jesus was born. However, it was most likely in spring, the only time that ancient shepherds ever watched over their flocks by night.

It is interesting to note that as Christmas spread throughout Europe, it absorbed the Winter Solstice customs of other countries. For example, when Christianity spread to Scandinavia, it found Scandinavians celebrating the Winter Solstice with Yule logs, mistletoe, holly, legends about elves, and Yule goats who carried presents from the gods.

Now, let’s examine the implications of these facts. Curiously, everyone should have a historical gripe with Christmas, whether conservative or liberal, Christian or non-Christian!


If you are a Christian, the fact that Christmas is a rip-off of pagan rituals should be completely unacceptable. Christ’s birth was not December 25, and none of today’s secular customs celebrate it. Furthermore, the Christ of the Gospels was an advocate of the poor; countless texts tell of his scorn for greed, money and the rich. The same goes for Saint Nicholas, the 4th Century Myran bishop who secretly gave anonymous gifts to the poor. The crass commercialization of Christmas today makes a mockery both Christian history and belief.

If you are a non-Christian, then of course the Christianization of the holiday should be unacceptable to you.


If you are a conservative, then Christmas should be objectionable because it hardly conserves the traditions of the past (which is the dictionary definition of conservatism). It is interesting to note that the vast majority of Christmas customs observed by Americans today were adopted only in the last 400 years, not the last 2,000 years.

If you are a liberal, then the objections are too numerous to mention. The ancient people celebrated the overturning of hierarchy; namely, the poor becoming equal to the rich, the slave becoming equal to the master, the citizen becoming equal to the king. But today’s holiday actually strengthens hierarchy and income inequality.

Furthermore, Christmas as practiced in modern America is deeply Euro-centric and Christian. The original holiday had multi-cultural roots from all over the world. Christian conservatives call these roots "pagan," but "pagan" is a racist epithet meaning "heathen" and "uncivilized." Our society should move beyond such prejudice.

What is the best solution to this dilemma? Let Christians move the birth of Christ to its more likely historical date (spring), and let them create their own customs, based on the Biblical accounts of Jesus' birth. Meanwhile, let the rest of us celebrate the Winter Solstice on its true date every year. How should we celebrate it? There is no one answer, since each culture has celebrated it differently. One attractive answer is: celebrate it however you want, after any culture you want.

I would make only one economic suggestion: trade services instead of goods as gifts. With a good, a merchant somewhere gets part of your money. With a service, your loved one gets 100 percent of your work effort. Let individuals buy their goods themselves; they know what they best want or need.

And with that, I wish you a Happy Winter’s Solstice.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/NoChristmas.html

 

[Nienna]

You know it's not even Thanksgiving yet and they're already rolling out the Christmas advertizing in New Orleans? It's really sickening. Talk about cheapening the holiday. At this rate pretty soon people will be lighting up their Christmas trees sometime in early July.

I saw some Christmas items displayed in Aug, when I took my kids back-to-school shopping. I'm not kidding.

 

[Nienna]

So a private business decides to downplay the term “Christmas”. Then, after some consumer pressure, it decides to up-play the term “Christmas”. Big deal. I regularly shop at Walmart and I didn’t even notice the lack of the term “Christmas” last year. It is just a another example of busy-body Christians getting so easily offended and wanting to be sure everyone knows about their “Christmas”.

All that I have to say about that is: Whether you are a Christian (Merry Christmas), or Muslim (Salam), or Jew (Shalom), or Atheist (Season’s Greetings), or any other religion – may whatever belief you have bring you peace and happiness this time of year and all the year through.

Do you work for Hallmark?

 

[Nienna]

Polls show that many people believe Christmas has become too commercialized. It should be a time of family celebration, friendship, spirituality and reflection. Unfortunately, almost all methods of celebrating Christmas nowadays require spending money.

So great is the social pressure to spend that 44 percent of all Americans feel they spend too much on Christmas gifts.

This is something I can agree with.

 

[Mr. P]

I saw some Christmas items displayed in Aug, when I took my kids back-to-school shopping. I'm not kidding.

I believe it. Over ten years ago I saw Christmas displays in Sept.