Keep CHRIST in Christmas

By Jerry McConnell

Have you done your Christmas shopping yet? Neither have I. I have been waiting for some guidelines from shopper-friendly sources that monitor a business’s trends and attitudes regarding advertising using the actual word Christmas and not the avoidance word, ‘Holiday’. If the store or business won’t use the word Christmas they are practicing anti-Christianism. I won’t shop in a store that has chosen to avoid use of the word Christmas. It began many decades ago as a Christian celebration; let’s keep it that way.

Liberal Democrats are so imbued with the notion that to keep the Islamofascists happy and to save their heads from severance off their bodies, they must degrade Christians and Jews. They do this on a daily basis with assistance from the heathen organization of ACLU the Anti-Christian Loonies Union. This must stop.

The United States is a country comprised of approximate EIGHTY PERCENT Christians; it was founded and begun by Christians and it has flourished with the addition of Christian accepting Judeo believers who while celebrating their own version call Hannukah have lived in peace with the Christian celebration of the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

But over the past few years in an attempt to straddle the fence and try to be neutral many businesses have deliberately avoided the use of the word ‘Christmas’ in their advertising and store or place of business facility decorations, which sorely offends nearly eight out of every ten American citizens. This Christian celebration apparently offends a very tiny percentage of our country’s population and to placate those scant few, many businesses risk losing the loss of purchases from great numbers of Christians who reject the businesses exclusionary practices.

In recent years a non-profit organization called “Focus on the Family Action” has conducted a customer-focused ‘rate-a-retailer’ campaign by soliciting shoppers to furnish their ratings and comments online at “StandforChristmas.com”
This non-profit organization explains on their website, how in recent years ‘Focus on the Family’ has evaluated the advertising of major retailers and assigned ratings based on their level of “Christmas-friendliness” and provided these ratings in an annual shopping guide.

You can visit FocusOnFamily.com and FocusAction.org to read more about these organizations.

The businesses listed below are grouped into 3 convenient tiers of Christmas loving or Christmas ignoring company practices. There is also one tier where the businesses within are trying to placate both Christians and anti-Christians with “just a little bit of Christmas advertising and mention”.

For those of you that will be going forth soon to do your shopping, print out the names of all these business so you are able to visit the more favorable ones and, as the businesses ignore Christmas, you can ignore them.

Stores and businesses that are More than 60% Christmas Friendly:
Bass Pro Shops
Cabela’s
Dillards
JCPenney
Kmart
Kohls
Lands End
Lowes
Pier One Imports
Sears
Target
WalMart

Stores and businesses that are In the middle between FRIENDLY and IGNORES & need improvements:
Bed, Bath and Beyond
Home Depot
L.L. Bean
Macy’s
Nordstrom
Stores and businesses that are More than 60% Negligent and Offensive towards Christmas:
American Eagle Outfitters
Banana Republic
Barnes and Noble
Crate and Barrel
Dick’s Sporting Goods
Eddie Bauer
Old Navy
Toys ‘R Us
Best Buy (Business with less than 10% Christmas friendly rating)
Borders (Business with less than 10% Christmas friendly rating)
Gap (Business with less than 10% Christmas friendly rating)
Lane Bryant (Only business with a ZERO Christmas friendly rating)

Jerry McConnell is a long time New Hampshire resident, a Marine veteren of Iwo Jima, and a published novelist. He resides in Hampton New Hampshire