Happy Time of Year

[Shari]

Hugh,

The U.S. is starting their battles in this arena as well.  Our 
megastore Walmart who stopped saying Merry Christmas, instead moving 
to Happy Holidays.  The majority of their customers were so unhappy 
that they had to put it back.  But it's the beginning of the 
ending... I'm sure the battle will rage on in years to come...

Following is a news story about the Bring Back of Christmas to Walmart.

Shari

>>  BEGIN NEWS STORY <<

Anti-PC backlash forces Walmart to bring back Christmas
By Philip Sherwell, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:28am GMT 17/12/2006


For American shoppers, a once-familiar refrain is making a surprise comeback.
In a reversal of policy, the retail giant Walmart has told staff that 
they can greet customers with "Merry Christmas" rather than having to 
wish them, blandly, "Happy Holidays".
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The country's largest private employer has also cocked a snook at 
political correctness by re-embracing Christmas in its advertising, 
restoring the word to its merchandise and piping carols through its 
stores.
It was forced into its rethink last year when the Catholic League, a 
powerful lobby group, organised a boycott because Walmart was 
promoting the Jewish holiday of Hannukah and the invented black 
festival of Kwanzaa, but not Christmas.
When the company told a meeting of 7,000 store managers in the autumn 
that it planned to refer to Christmas "early and often", the room 
erupted with cheers, a spokesman said. "We believed it was the right 
thing to do. Our customers and staff have told us they are very glad 
we did it."
Christmas has become an annual battleground in America's culture 
wars. Several years of over-zealous political correctness, combined 
with the constitutional separation of church and state, led to 
regular clashes over the use of Christmas symbols and phrases - even 
though 83 per cent of Americans identify themselves as Christian.
It took a consumer backlash and financial threat for Walmart to see 
seasonal sense. "Hats off to Walmart," said Keira McCaffrey, the 
communications director of the Catholic League. "They said they had 
learned their lessons from customers and they have listened."
She believes that the tide is slowly turning as frustrated Americans 
start to reclaim Christmas. At Seattle airport, officials reinstated 
14 plastic Christmas trees last week after they were inundated with 
calls complaining about their removal after a rabbi threatened to sue 
the airport.
Matt Blunt, the Missouri governor, declared: "No state employee will 
be reprimanded or in any way disciplined for saying 'Merry 
Christmas'." But elsewhere, the Christmas lobby have suffered 
setbacks and several big stores still insist on the "Happy Holidays" 
greeting.
In Chicago, the distributors of the hit film, The Nativity Story, 
were told to remove their advertising from a Christmas market on 
government property, because it breached the separation between 
church and state. In the small New York state town of Warwick, a 
school faces legal action over its annual "Breakfast with Santa" 
fund-raiser after a parent complained that the popular event, held on 
a Saturday and completely optional, offends non-Christians because it 
includes a visit from Santa Claus. The headmaster's offer to dress up 
as Frosty the Snowman failed to deter an attorney's threatening 
letter.
Christian organisations promoting public displays of Christmas this 
year have drawn solace from a new consumer poll that found 95 per 
cent of Americans were not upset by "Merry Christmas" - but 46 per 
cent took offence at "Happy Holidays".

>>  END NEWS STORY <<


>Thank you, Alain. I only wish I had the nerve to take the credit... 
>Unfortunately I cannot. For those of us living in the UK where 
>'Happy  Christmas',
>school nativity plays or anything celebrating our own culture that 
>is seen to be
>at the expense of minority groups, is subject to a fear of moral 
>condemnation at best and potential legal action at worst, this may 
>be the  writing on the
>wall. Most cards I have received this year no longer say Happy  Christmas but
>Seasons Greetings or similar amophous sentiments. This pandering  to supposed
>sensitivities (which are vehemently disclaimed by the leaders of  those for
>whom it it intended, in fact) saddens me. No, actually it angers me.  A lot.
>
><end rant>
>
>/H


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