Posted on 12/04/2006 12:08:35 PM PST by Ebenezer
It’s official. After six years of what has been called a “war on Christmas,” Merry Christmas is coming back. Much of corporate America has conceded defeat on the issue. What most people do not realize is that a conservative cultural victory slipped quietly under the radar and the rumblings of that battle do not bode well for the left.
War on Christmas
While liberals claim the “war on Christmas” is a fabrication of the religious right, the fact is that, for years, many Americans have been taking a lot of fire from those who would create silence around Christmas.
Call it what you will, no one can deny that a sterile “Happy Holidays” was the officially-imposed greeting that grated the ears of so many shoppers as they saw their Christmas trees renamed “holiday” trees. Nativity scenes were banned from city halls and shopping malls while menorahs and other religious symbols were permitted. Parents and students saw schools quietly expunge Christmas programs and carols from their winter schedules.
With grinch-like intransigence, a liberal establishment seemed intent upon ignominiously expelling from the public square that same Christ Child who could find no place in the public inn.
Welcome Back
The gradual yet unpopular transition from Merry Christmas to Happy Holidays suffered a surprising reversal this Christmas season.
On November 9, two days after the elections, Wal-Mart announced it is officially endorsing Christmas for the 2006 season in its store, print, radio and television advertising. Children playing near a Nativity scene and Christmas tree can be found in its advertising campaign. Its “Holiday shop” is now a “Christmas shop.” A spokeswoman for Wal-Mart said “We learned our lesson from last year, we are using Christmas this year at Wal-Mart. We’ll use it early and we’ll use it often!”
If there is no “war on Christmas” as liberals claim, someone should have at least told Wal-Mart. The huge retailer’s move is a pretty frank acknowledgment that a “war on Christmas” has existed. Moreover, Wal-Mart is joined by other major retailers such as Dillards, JC Penny, L.L. Bean, Linens ’n Things, Target, Kohl’s, Sears, Kmart and Macy’s who have plainly and clearly put Christmas back in their message to consumers. While not all retailers have jumped on the bandwagon, the message is clear: Merry Christmas is back in the malls.
Profound Shift
Some might say that such positioning is merely a move to gain more sales from Christmas shoppers. The move was all about dollars and hardly a victory in the Cultural War.
No doubt, retailers will profit from their moves toward pleasing consumers – definitely a marketing tactic. However, the change came because a groundswell of angry Americans rose up to oppose the silence around Christmas – and that is a cultural event.
Religious groups such as the American Family Association and others boycotted retailers last holiday season for excluding the word “Christmas” from products sold in stores. Retailers felt the full strength of their wrath which indicates a cultural shift not to be taken lightly.
In fact, bringing Christmas back was not a token bone thrown to consumers in the hope of satisfying them long enough to take their dollars. Wal-Mart’s move was a complete and passionate about-face that extended even to management. Indeed, when Wal-Mart announced its unabashed commitment to using the word Christmas to nearly 7,000 of its store managers this fall, the company reported that “the move was met with rapturous applause.”
Highlighting this same undercurrent are others who have taken the offensive by defending the right of celebrating Christmas in the public square. The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) announced on November 15, that it has more than 950 attorneys available nationwide to combat any improper attempts to censor the celebration of Christmas in schools and on public property.
The legal foundation is putting its legal muscle to work to clear up misconceptions about seasonal religious expression on public property. It points out, for example that the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled that public schools must ban the singing of religious Christmas carols or prohibit Christmas cards. Not even government-sponsored Christmas displays are banned as some people believe. The foundation’s portfolio of past cases indicates that the “war on Christmas” is far from an imagined threat.
Sensitive Issue
Some might admit that the return of Merry Christmas is indeed a cultural development but hardly a conservative victory. After all, 95 percent of Americans, liberal and conservative alike, celebrate Christmas. The majority of Americans favor “Merry Christmas” over “Happy Holidays.” Calling it a conservative victory only politicizes an already over-commercialized holiday.
However, the whole controversy around silencing Christmas treads on one of those sensitive religious issues that strikes a deep chord in most Americans.
All media grudgingly admit that America is a deeply religious nation. That is not to say Americans are paladins of virtue, or are even familiar with all its tenets. It only means that the overwhelming majority of the American people harbor religious sentiments. Moreover, the mere acknowledgment of a God admits a higher authority above men that gives these same Americans a vague idea of the existence of a moral law.
Thus, the controversy must be seen from a broader perspective. When radical liberals call for the silencing of Christmas, they also hope to suppress those nettlesome moral issues that gave origin to the Cultural War.
Cultural War Victory
In this sense, the return of Merry Christmas represented a victory in the Cultural War. By putting God back in the public square, it also brings back the notions of morality in society.
The fact that Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest corporation, admitted its error and changed its tune to please disgruntled Christians highlights how these basic issues, tragically absent from most campaign rhetoric, touch high tension wires that force the left to retreat.
In fact, the left is hard pressed to replicate such victories with its own issues. Much to the liberals’ chagrin, Wal-Mart, the whipping boy of the left, has largely ignored their clamor.
Indeed, when Wal-Mart did make a small concession by joining the Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and donating to a pro-homosexual cause, the same Christian grassroots that rallied around Christmas raised such an uproar that the giant retailer beat an embarrassing retreat.
While these Christians still remain skeptical, Wal-Mart now says it will “no longer make corporate contributions to support or oppose controversial issues unless they directly relate to their ability to serve their customers.” To dispel unrest over its political leanings, the retailer stated that “Wal-Mart does not have a position on same-sex marriage, and we do not give preference to gay or lesbian suppliers.”
While the the return of Merry Christmas to the malls is a welcome respite, the “war on Christmas” is far from over. The attacks still continue in other areas. However, the victory should serve as an encouragement for all those who oppose removing God from the public square and morality from law.
* * *
In the meantime, all should take heart and shout “Merry Christmas.” “For unto us, a Child is born, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace”(Isaias 9:6)
ping
Last night I saw a Wal Mart commercial extolling, heck BRAGGING that they are working with the Salvation Army and wishing people Merry Christmas.
We noticed this over the weekend when we heard all sorts of Christmas music and saw Merry Christmas signs hanging around at the mall.
Yep, that was an in-your-face Target move.
I'm a little disappointed that the annual Sparring With The Infidels tradition hasn't really taken off 'this holiday'. My friend says her daughters' friends are all having "Winter Parties" this month -- I asked if that's the same as a Christmas Party and she didn't answer.
I'm also concerned that this article is feigning defeat. I haven't heard the word Christmas used on the television, and I'm still constantly cringing when I hear "This Holiday, give him the gift that..."
I never had a problem with Happy Holidays -- it was just an alternative way of saying the same thing. For variety. It's only the last few years that it started to be unacceptable to say anything else. Oh, and I don't mind "Holidays" so much, it's when they drop the 's' and make it just 'holiday', which invariably means Christmas, that I get real perturbed.
Yeah, Sally has been running commercials featuring the bell ringers, which I think is a nice in-your-face riposte to Target and K-mart who banned them. Is Kmart even still around anymore?
Kmart is still around, but fewer these days.
Actually, even in this, the joke is on the secularists. "Holiday" is a Middle English variant of the Old English haligdaeg, meaning, of course, "holy day". And holy days are those originally designed by the Catholic Church (in the West, and the Holy Orthodox in the East) for the remembrance of important events in the life of Christ. In particular, "Christmas" means, literally, the Mass of Christ.
Christianity is the bedrock of our culture, no matter how much the psuedo-intellectuals try to obscure that fact.
Oh, I'm waiting for them to go after the word 'Holi-day.' Maybe 'Festival' would be better, as in "Winter Festival."
When the normal pleasantry at this season such as "Merry Christmas" can once again unashamedly, unabashedly be offered between people in the work place, in the elevator, in public schools, on the train, in the carpool, at the check out counter, and particularly in public work places such as government offices/city halls, then we will all know for sure that a real sea change has taken place.
I myself do not think America is there yet and that we have yet to fully reverse course on a mass societal basis.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.