Focus on the Family Saves Christmas -- Thank God!

Warning to anxious retailers printing up holiday catalogs with your shopping season fingers crossed: Don't just say a prayer for decent sales this year. (And try to say it to the right deity). Absolutely, positively make sure you don't shy away from the using word "Christmas" in your crass annual attempt to pander to all those secular customers.

This bit of stern seasonal advice comes from Colorado Springs' Focus on the Family, one of the key actors and donors in the Yes on 8 campaign. (Over $600,000, according to our SF Gate contributor database.)

This is a little table-turning on the calls by some No on 8 supporters for a boycott of businesses that gave to the proposition. Only Focus isn't handing out over-the-knee spankings (with or without a "safe word") about same sex marriage. Instead they've just posted their second annual online shoppers guide identifying retailers that are "Christmas-negligent" or, even worse, "Christmas-offensive."

"Offensive" to the Focus folks doesn't mean calling Santa fat. Nor does it mean giving the gift of camouflage sheets from Cabela's, though they are deemed "Christmas-friendly."

According to the Colorado Springs Gazette:

"(Christmas) friendly retailers are so designated because they prominently use "Merry Christmas" and other Christmas-specific references in their catalogs and in-store promotions. Those on the Christmas-offensive list use phrases such as "happy holidays" and have "apparently abandoned" the use of the word "Christmas," Focus said. Christmas-negligent companies "marginalize" their message by using "Christmas" in some cases and "holidays" in others."

So words do have meaning - and are clearly important to Newt Gingrinch (I mean, Gingrich) who may not approve of gift-worshiping heathens and rails against the "gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us."

Focus spokeswoman Sonja Swiatkiewicz tells the Gazette that this "is not a boycott. Consumers can do what they wish with the information." But such campaigns apparently have some effect. In 2005, the Gazette notes, Sears, Kmart, Walmart and Target all shifted to "Christmas-friendly" language from the generic "holiday season" after boycott threats from religious groups.

This year's Focus campaign, the Gazette says, sent out letters to 33 retailers about using the Christmas language. According to the Gazette, "Eight agreed - we don't know which - three were noncommittal (isn't commitment the issue here?). The rest have not responded."

But, the newspapers' accounting is a little off. Because here in SF, the white hot center of the No on 8 campaign, retailer Gap, Inc. has committed to keeping its Christmas-offensive neutral holiday language. Gap, which also owns Banana Republic and Old Navy, is "aware that our customers come from many faith backgrounds," said company spokeswoman Melissa Swanson. "We honor that by not advertising toward people of any one faith. We want all our customers to experience a warm and friendly shopping experience."

Warm and friendly, like faith, is all in the definition.

Just so you know, Focus on the Family knows the pain side of giving as well as receiving in a bad economy. While it hopes to put some pressure on wayward retailers' bottom line, the group itself just announced it was eliminating 202 jobs, 18 percent of its workforce - the heaviest cuts in its 32-year history - and is slashing its annual budget from $160 million to $138 million.

Tough times all over. But Focus isn't likely to abandon its crusade.

And don't even think about using "Xmas." You'd be opening yourself up to a world of hurt.

Merry, uh, mmm, er, well, you know.

Follow Phil Bronstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PhilBronstein

Comments

[pons1595]

The abbreviation of 'Xmas' for 'Christmas' is neither modern nor disrespectful. The notion that it is a new and vulgar representation of the word 'Christmas' seems to stem from the erroneous belief that the letter 'X' is used to stand for the word 'Christ' because of its resemblance to a cross, or that the abbreviation was deliberately concocted "to take the 'Christ' out of Christmas." Actually, this usage is nearly as old as Christianity itself, and its origins lie in the fact that the first letter in the Greek word for 'Christ' is 'chi,' and the Greek letter 'chi' is represented by a symbol similar to the letter 'X' in the modern Roman alphabet. Hence 'Xmas' is indeed perfectly legitimate abbreviation for the word 'Christmas.'

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/xmasabbr.asphttp://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/xmasabbr.asp

[mcthfg]

Is FotF failing because god hates them?

Being as the great cloud daddy is silent on this one, it's up to us to talk FOR him/her/it.

So I say yes. Yes, FotF is failing because god not only hates them, he's asked that they never pray to him again.

He told me so. In a letter. That you can't see.

[frogluv73]

I hope those 202 people who lost their jobs realize that FOTF could've spent that Yes on 8 money to keep them. We gays may not be able to marry, but WE still have jobs and "holiday" spending money. Religion...not always good for the soul.

[Helmsey]

Ok, I did not want to have to do this *sigh* again, but well here goes. *climbs up on soap box* Well being a Colorado resident, (Denver mind you, not Colorado Spring) I have to put up with from time to time the focus on the family people. I am doing my part to try to let them know how I feel about them, mainly my focus on your own da*n family bumper stick. Still I can not help getting into arguements with religious people especially during the holidays. Lets face some historical facts about Christmas. First, no one really knows when Jesus was born, this assumes that he existed in the first place, which has not been proven btw. The whole premise behind Christmas being on December 25 was that it is the winter solstice. There were already Pagan festivals set around this time, so as not to disrupt the normal holiday time, when the Byzantines converted to Christianity under Constantine. They claimed that the solstice was the birth of Christ. The evidence I have seen suggest Constantine did this for political purposes, and remained a pagan himself. Well to get to the point of this comment, celebrating Christmas is pretty much going along with a holiday that was created by pagans to make Chistianity more in their image. So I see something about focus on the family trying to boycott stores not on board with their Christian aganda and I can not help but see the irony.

[kensp]

The biggest solstice celebration was Saturnalia which was practiced throughout the Roman Empire. It was traditional on this day for Roman nobles to switch places with their slaves and wait on them for a change. This is undoubtedly where the tradition of christmas gift giving started.

As recently as the early 19th century there were serious efforts made by the James Dobson's of that time to ban the celebration of Christmas, due to its pagan roots. Christmas as we know it today originated in the mid 19th century, when the church finally gave up and accepted it. It was not at all widely celebrated or accepted at the time of the founding fathers. Whenever you hear one of these shameless right wing demagogues talking about christ being taken out of Christmas, remember that Christ being put in Christmas in the first place is historically a very recent event.

[Helmsey]

Good point kensp.

[kps888]

Thank you for posting this. You are correct about Christmas' origins, now if we could only find an explanation for people's desire to go into debt to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

[propitiousmoment]

And it used to be a public celebration, but the powers in the 19th C. turned it into a more individual-family centered event to keep big crowds of people from getting together with nothing to do in hard times but protest the imbalance of wealth, and maybe turning ugly a la the French revolution. As long as we are all focused on shopping and cooking for company, and waiting for Santa, we are not out in public forming a potential mob.

[sonshine]

Dobson and his people are totally crazy! Just ignore them and it will feel like they're not even there. (snark!)

[mgloraine]

The rest of the world could easily use Dobson's list in reverse to thoroughly defeat his intent. The thought of Dobson in total defeat is a heart-warming image for this holiday season.

[War VetsMom]

The Focus on the Family group, should focus on their own families and not ours...As for the correct way to wish people good cheer at Christmas.

I would like to wish Dobson and Focus on the Family a Gay Christmas season, they spent enough money on prop 8, they deserve it......

[BlackJAC]

Somebody should put James Dobson behind a cash register for the duration of Black Friday so he can see just how unhappy the holidays really are. If he's still enjoying regular Christmas music afterwards, he can say whatever he likes about stores that say "happy holidays."

[RaleighRob]

In a perfect world, I'd boycott any company that decorates for Christmas too early. (But then that'd leave me with no where to shop.)
It's not even Thanksgiving yet and I'm already tired of Christmas.
I think Williams-Sonoma is the only store that actually remembers there's another holiday (Thanksgiving) between Halloween and Christmas.

[MamaBird62]

Totally agree Rob. I saw Christmas stuff at the local Walgreen's BEFORE Halloween. We'd barely made it past back-to-school. I wish these people would at least figure out that orange clashes with Christmas red!
This is why I respect Nordstrom so much. They forbid any hint of Christmas in their stores until the day after Thanksgiving.

[rosewelsh]

As I've been saying since I saw and fell in love with this cartoon: http://www.toilette-humor.com/halloween/thanksgivoween.shtml

MERRY THANKSGIVOWEEN!

[MajorKong]

It's kind of ironic that the mostly Protestant colonial-era Americans disdained Christmas as a "Papist" holiday. It didn't really become big until the late 1800s when retailers started to push it heavily.

[babaann]

Yes, and now the commercialization is way out of hand. The Christian ( Zealots) Right is wanting the retailers to choose sides. Since they control so much money, they believe that they can force the issue?
Calling gays (and other groups seeking human rights) fascists who RAILING, so the Christians are going to boycott-because of how the signs read.
The gay campaign didn't seem to be all that WHITE or HOT- until certain foes got all HOT and bothered and started RAILING over it.
Is it hopeless?

[billydog]

I normally don't like alot of the doings of Focus on the Family but I think they have a pretty good case in this instance. There are forces out there that are deliberately trying to quash the word Christmas at
Christmas time. I think they are the whackjobs and the dangerous ones. Christmas is a huge tradition at the end of December. Yeah, yeah, I know the Christians stole the date of celebration from the winter solstice celebrators but that was a very, very long time ago. The vast majority of Americans are Christians and they should be allowed to have there day without a ton of protest from protesters who love to protest for protest sakes. Christmas is a wonderful holiday for most and shouldn't be punched at like a punching bag every year by the diversity demanders.

[RobinLandseadel]

It's where the sun is and where the heat went. It's faux celebratory spirit to surmount encroaching death. It's the sun finally moving up on the horizon on the 25th of December. There's nothing more pagan than "Christmas" and nothing shallower than the expectation of a 4th quarter up-tic in retail sales. Want to celebrate Christmas like a Christian? Then don't go for the orgy of shopping, gifting and [latest craze] re-gifting.

[KenGirard]

So the stores should ignore the 20-30% of the population celebrating all the other holidays in December?
And if a company puts up "Happy Hanaka", "Happy Solstice", "Happy Kwanza" and "Happy Chritsmas" signs some Christians will be complaining about 3 of them.

[MamaBird62]

Why is it that people expect retail stores to be religious? They are there to sell stuff, not save your soul. Don't you have a church to attend? The only thing the stores worship is you and your credit card. Happy holidays indeed.

[blue ocean55]

Exactly!

[blue ocean55]

The people of Haiti are literally eating "cookies" made of mud to avoid complete starvation and these "Christians" are using their time and resources to make sure businesses use Christmas themes to sell their products?

James Dobson is no Christian and anyone who thinks Christ wants companies to use his birth as a marketing gimmick completely miss the point of the gospel.

[PATina]

I agree. I like the word Christmas... but to spend money on trying to FORCE people to use it (not to mention wasting it on Prop 8)... when that money could have been used more "Christianly"... demonstrates a lack of Christian understanding in that organization.

[blue ocean55]

I enjoy wishing people a Merry Christmas (and I would be flattered if someone wished me a Happy Hanukkah or any other greeting), but whether or not Walmart puts up a display that says "Merry Christmas" means absolutely nothing to me. It concerns me that so many people who call themselves Christians worry more about defending the status quo than taking up the cause of "goodwill towards men."

[gwhizz]

Amen!
I am a Christian and celebrate Christmas. I've done this all my life. What I can't figure out is when bashing people who don't use the right words became a part of Christmas Tradition. As many posts have already pointed out, our Christmas Traditions are relatively modern. Our image of Santa is courtesy Cocacola, forcrissake!

To all those Uber Christians who think their job consists of telling everyone else what to do, I have to throw this right back atcha: what would Jesus think? I'd guess he'd think you should drop the holier-than-thou judging of others as spend your time and money helping those who can't help themselves!

[Robert2664]

1st of all what does it matter what we call the season.Rember there are some who don't even celebratethis time of year like JW's,Muslims,Jews,Athiests And others. What matters is whats in ones heart.I don't go to church but i love this time of year.I don't have kids but i have alot of friends that are as close to me as family some closer.my parents have passed on.I have no siblings or close relatives.So for me If a store says Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays it shouldn't matter. If there is a Christ does anybody really think that he cares what you call it.so stop worrying on what you call it and love your fellow humanbeing just as you would like to be loved isn't that what this time of the year is about?. Peace And love to ALL no exceptions!

[L. Rozner]

It's because of scams like this so-called "War on Christmas" that I voted for Obama. As a moderate liberal, I was almost tempted to vote for John McCain based on some reasons I seem to have now forgotten. It was the day before the election, and I heard the latest radio attack ad paid for by the McCain/Palin campaign and the RNC. I could get over the nonsense about Obama being the most extreme supporter of abortion or whatnot, but it was this line that liberal Democrats are waging war on Christmas that made me boil my blood. McCain lost my vote over that because there are three things I hate with utmost revulsion more than any thing in the world: Pernicous scammers in the guise of compassionate Christian groups, like FOTF, AFA and ADF, who try to scam people out of their hard earned money by selling them lousy wares like "I Survived the War on Christmas" or other nonsene. The other two are people who try to censor television, and Andy Dick (the third one's a joke, Mr. Dick, I kid you.) So remeber that and don't let these pernicious liars scam you out of your money.

[XME]

I thought this was the perfect response to ANYTHING coming from this group:

http://bumperstickers.cafepress.com/item/focus-on-your-own-damn-family-sticker-oval/36469144