Admin webmdave Posted October 14, 2007 Admin Share Posted October 14, 2007 Reposted from: Freethought Café by J.C. Samuelson As the holiday season approaches, many businesses are beginning to put up signs, decorations, and displays in preparation for the inevitable feeding frenzy that precedes the venerated Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Many begin to roll out their holiday products as well. One such company is Mrs. Fields, purveyor of cookies for a variety of occasions. It seems that an apparent failure by Mrs. Fields to offer products explicitly catering to the "Merry Christmas" crowd - by October - has drawn the scrutiny of those invested in the idea that there is a "War on Christmas." Many Americans have felt in recent years that there is a war on Christmas, a holiday with mixed roots in paganism and Christianity. Propelled by pundits such as Bill O'Reilly, John Gibson, and several Evangelical groups, including the American Family Association, this component of the culture war has descended to new depths of absurdity. In an email posted at Freerepublic.com, the fact that Mrs. Fields doesn't presently have any explicitly Christian products ready for sale online is suggested as being an indication that the company "has become the first company to ban Christmas from their products and promotion for this year." Several (presumably Christian) posters also weighed in on the issue, vowing to boycott the company due to its apparent capitulation to the secularization of America. The email also suggests that interested parties should "[t]ake a look at Mrs. Fields Holiday Gift Preview by clicking here. In the "search" bar, type in the word "Christmas." But don't expect to find any reference to Christmas." Good advice. It's always best to investigate for yourself. A visit to the site proves unremarkable and hardly indicative of Mrs. Fields having joined any war on Christmas. In fact, typing any name for a religious or secular holiday, including Yom Kippur, Ramadan, Chanukah, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, Solstice, and Christmas, yields the same result: "Sorry, no records were found with the search parameters you provided." Typing in Easter yields one result, a rather innocuous-looking box of cookies adorned with flowers and bow. Although it's not necessary to do so, provisionally granting their complaint some degree of validity, it seems a wee bit premature for the AFA to be throwing accusations at a company that doesn't seem to be discriminating in the first place. In fact, since the brouhaha began, Mrs. Fields put up a notice (rather too quickly for it to have been the result of AFA's email) on their home page that acknowledges that some are concerned by the absence of explicitly Christmas-oriented gifts. Yet it also notes that their Christmas product line is to be rolled out November 1st. Had the AFA waited, might they have had nothing to complain about? Removing the grant of provisional validity, it's clear that AFA has set its sights on a company that doesn't favor any holiday over the other; i.e., they remain neutral. This is good business policy, nothing more. In other words, plainly AFA wants preferential treatment for its members' beliefs from a public company with no apparent theological axe to grind. It's also worth pointing out that this knee-jerk reaction on the part of Christians to any perceived slight of their faith - even when it doesn't have anything directly to do with actually practicing their faith - shows them to be among the most thin-skinned and shallow of people. Sadly, organizations such as AFA feed off such people, manipulating them to direct their resources toward chasing the ghost of illusory persecution. The AFA is hereby notified that, in a memo from the North Pole obtained by the Freethought Café, Santa Clause expressed his outrage over this sort of mealy-mouthed, reactionary, knee-jerk, hypersensitive whining, and that everyone contributing to this tempest-in-a-tea-cup has officially been placed on his "Naughty" list. The "War on Christmas" is a myth, folks. Get over it. Have a happy weekend. http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2007/10...-christmas.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Light_of_Reason Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 I was wondering how long it would take the War on Xmas crowd to open their mouths. This really is the saddest and stupidest thing I have heard in my life, and what makes it even sadder is the people who actually fall for this crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 I checked, they have three items now for Christmas. But they still don't have anything for Saturnalia! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbobrob Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 They have 4 pages of "Holiday" treats, and several have the word Christmas, but not one had Kwanza, Channukah, Thanksgiving, Yule, or even Winter Soltice. Feel sorry for Mrs. Fields. They are forced to rush their product line to appease idiots who don't bother to just ask a rep where the Christmas stuff is. Whatever happened to asking first, boycott later. Dummies. Personally, I like the creativity of the Halloween Cookie Coffin Surprise, than the rushed to the website Christmas Tree which was obviously just the Valentine heart cookie turned upside down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 Just so long as we get to keep our winter holiday. Don't take away our Festival of Lights. These days when I'm out walking late at night I keep looking for fancy lights on front lawns and on houses then I realize it's still a bit early. I do enjoy the lights. And the excitement of everyone getting ready for the High Holiday of the Year, call it what you will. As you know, I'm as peeved as anyone about xians with their persecution complex but I really love this one bit of culture that has been part of my preChristian European heritage. "Deck the hall" says it so well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jun Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 Just so long as we get to keep our summer holiday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 Just so long as we get to keep our summer holiday. LOL!!!! Can it possibly mean as much in summer as in winter? Thanks for reminding me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
par4dcourse Posted October 15, 2007 Share Posted October 15, 2007 If they would just call it for what it is, trading useless crap day, then I might sgn on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev R Posted October 18, 2007 Share Posted October 18, 2007 On the other hand... http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/r...07/10_16-27/TOP Keeping Halloween, Halloween Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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