Posted on 11/14/2007 4:30:26 AM PST by Man50D
An early skirmish in this year's "War on Christmas" ended on Tuesday when the nationwide home improvement chain Lowe's apologized for referring to Christmas trees in its holiday catalog as "family trees."
"That was a complete error," Maureen Rich, a spokeswoman for Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse - which serves more than 13 million customers a week in its 1,400 stores across the nation - told Cybercast News Service. "Right now, we're extremely disappointed in this breakdown in our own creative process.
"We are apologizing to customers today for any confusion our holiday catalog created," Rich said. She explained that the full-color document is called a holiday catalog "because it encompasses all the holidays from October through January."
Rich's comments came in response to an "Action Alert" sent out earlier in the day by the Mississippi-based American Family Association. The e-mail stated: "In an effort to avoid the use of the term 'Christmas tree,' Lowe's [is] now calling them 'family trees.'"
"In their Holiday 2007 catalog, containing 56 pages of Christmas gifts, Lowe's advertises hundreds of gift items, including scores of 'family trees,'" the message continued. "In fact, the word 'Christmas' only appears two times in the entire holiday catalog."
"Lowe's evidently did not want to offend any non-Christians; therefore, they replaced 'Christmas tree' with 'family tree,'" the AFA e-mail said. "Of course, if Christians are offended, that is evidently OK.
"An online search of Lowe's does reference some 'Christmas' items. In fact, a word search of their Web site gives the exact same number - 174 - of the word 'Christmas' as it does the word 'holiday,'" the missive added.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
I sent them an email too - PLUS - I copied all of this information and sent it to everyone on my email list - almost all of them fellow Christians who will be as offended as I was.
I agree with the poster above that if Christians stopped shopping for Christmas presents and decorations that are made for the “commercial” holiday - and started celebrating the holiday as it really is - Christ’s birthday - the merchants would definitely get the message that Christmas is really about Christ - not spending money.
We are still a majority here in this country and it seems that it’s time we throw our weight around. These stupid merchants seem to have forgotten that little fact.
I don’t know about anyone else - but everyone on my Christmas shopping list has everything in the world anyway. It’s becoming more and more difficult to shop for people these days. I am too tired to truly celebrate the “reason for the season” after doing all that shopping, etc. I would like to see Christmas get back to more of a religious holiday and a time for families to just get together and forget this shopping rat race stuff!
Why it gotta be black?
*$#@ Lowes
Who cares?
But I guess it is better for a three year old to be shown pictures of dead babies rather than have some fun and enjoy the holidays. I hope that you and your family all receive a new, bigger and sharper stick for your collective asses this year.
I've heard it got the name because it's when retailers will finally be in the black, since much/most of their profits are made during the weeks after Thanksgiving.
Retail workers'll tell you it's cuz you're black (and blue) by the end of the day. Shudder.
I get my loved ones a card appropriate for the season, a real CHRISTMAS card that invokes the name of the Savior. The gift has been for the last 5 years and will continue to be a gift card so they can buy what THEY want and not what I think they want. The wife says she thinks it's not a thoughtful gift. My response is it's a whole lot more thoughtful then no gift at all.
Thought you might like to see this after yesterdays thread
Let’s rename Ramadan into the “Yearly daytime diet”
I don't know what led to the Christmas tree issue breakdown, but I do know that this is a good company - great to work for, offering to lend their corporate jet to fly an employee to attend the funeral of a serviceman who was murdered in New Orleans -- they removed an issue of "O" magazine from their store shelves when it was discovered to have an inappropriate advertisement in a particular issue.
They are very supportive of this employee who is married to a military person. I myself have sent out cards at Christmas saying "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" -- we have Jewish customers and I would like to include them in my annual correspondence. It doesn't mean I'm insulting the Christians among that group.
Yes, the term "Family Tree" is pretty lame - but after all they have apologized and I don't know what else they could do at this point.
Did Lowe’s think that non-Christians would be buying these “Family Trees”....?
Same to you screwball!
We ought to insist that they institute "sensitivity training" to those who were responsible for making the decision.
I say this kind of tongue in cheek, but you know the left would do this if a non-Christian was offended. Sometimes in order to show the stupidity of the left's methods, you need to employ them back on them.
I've always found that the best way to make a stupid policy go away is to have it actually affect the policy makers.
BS!!! You don't accidentally call a Christmas Tree a "family tree" have it approved and proofed by dozens of people for publication and have it go out as an 'accident'.
This was intentional, to claim an "accident" on something like this requires "the suspension of disbelief".
I don't much cotton to apologies and apologists who make excuses for CEOs and company "human services" liberal morons when it comes to their Christmas bashing.....and that's exactly what this "family tree" crapioli is.
My email prose really makes me feel good. I use the stilletto approach rather than the sledgehammer.....and it's fun to compose these little guided missiles and send them on their merry....oops, sorry.....swift way.
Leni
Outstanding response!
A tree is not a Christmas tree until it’s decorated or a customer decides it’s a Christmas tree. The same tree could be a Hanukkah tree to someone else.
Until a customer decorates it, it’s just a tree and should be sold as one.
That’s what I was thinking yesterday -
the picture of the guy holding his head saying “not this sht again”.
I have an idea, just to show the left how ridiculous they look - let’s demand “sensitivity training” for the Lowe’s creative department.
I’m glad my soda was sitting on the desktop when I read your post, else it would have come out through my nose. I’m going to shamelessly steal your joke and use it. 8-)
They could apologize for the mistake, and then pull the catalog.
It’s not like Home Depot didn’t get a face full of this last year and they didn’t see it coming.
If the atheists want to go start a country, they should somewhere, but it shouldn’t be this one.
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