Posted on 11/19/2012 11:08:47 AM PST by Gopher Broke
Dear Friend,
As the Christmas shopping season begins full swing, AFA has prepared its annual "Naughty or Nice" retailer list.
We have taken the top 100 national retailers and reviewed their websites, media advertising and in-store signage in an effort to help you know which companies are Christmas-friendly.
Over the past seven years, your AFA has stood firm in the "War on Christmas." Companies who used to refuse to acknowledge Christmas now have Christmas "shops" inside their stores. Many of them now liberally use "Christmas" in their advertising and in-store signage. Sadly, there are still some companies which refuse to use "Christmas." They continue to insult and offend Christian shoppers by sticking with their politically correct "holiday" term.
Skip Black Thursday Night and Black Friday All Together. One of the reasons is this is hurting Christmas. 32 days of saying anything repetitive. Christmas should start being mentioned until the end of November. DON’T SHOP UNTIL DECEMBER OR DON”T SPEND AT ALL TO PREPARE FOR OBAMA 2013.
I have had Jewish friends wish me Merry Christmas, and I wish them Happy Hannukah, knowing full well that H. is a rather minor Jewish holiday historically. The important thing is that a good wish is friendly.
Strange that I have never had a Muslim wish me Merry Christmas.
Scrooge Alert: Boycott Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic this Christmas
November 19, 2012
Dear Friend,
AFA is calling for a limited two-month boycott of Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic, the three stores owned by San Francisco-based Gap Inc., over the company’s censorship of the word “Christmas.”
For years, the Gap companies have refused to use the word Christmas on their websites, in television commercials, newspaper ads and in-store promotions, despite tens of thousands of consumer requests to recognize Christmas and in spite of repeated requests from AFA to do the same.
Need proof? Go to www.gap.com or www.oldnavy.com and type “Christmas” in the search bar. As of today, the websites bring up zero results. In fact, Old Navy’s site gives an error message.
You’ll find “holiday” picks, “holiday” wonderland, “holiday” anthem and a “holiday” gift guide, but you won’t find “Christmas.”
Gap and Old Navy are censoring the word Christmas, pure and simple. Yet the company wants all the people who celebrate Christmas to do their shopping at their stores. Until Gap proves it recognizes Christmas by using it in their newspaper, radio and television advertising or in-store signage, the boycott will be promoted.
In the past AFA has played a part in convincing other retailers to change their approach. But at Gap and Old Navy, it’s “Bah, Humbug!”
The post holiday sales begin December 26th, NOT January 2nd.
What, New Year’s is NOT among the “holiday season” holidays? Give me a break already.
I’m not ascribing it to all northern Europeans. I’m pointing out that it wasn’t part of Christianity until they started converting northern Europeans. This all stems from YOUR false statement in post 29:
The traditions are founded in Christianity and the Christmas story.
I’m pointing out that many of these traditions are NOT founded in Christianity and the Christmas story. There’s no pine trees in the Christmas story, and there were no pine trees in the Christmas celebration for centuries. So declaring the decorated trees are a tradition founded in Christianity and the Christmas story is, quite simply, a lie. And you yourself have presented evidence of that. You have proven your own statement false.
They have barbies (BBQ) on the beach.
I went to an “orphan” beach party on the Gold Coast one year.
On this particular issue I part company with the AFA. I think their stance on this issue is divisive and makes Christians look petty and ignorant.It's the Christmas season. It's our culture. We exist, too, and the brainwashing involved in getting folks to think "Happy Holidays" is, imho, an "anti-Christian culture" initiative.
From Advent (anticipating the coming of the Lord) through Christmas (celebrating the coming of the Lord) is, given the year, in the neighborhood of 40 days long. It is always the 4 Sundays preceding Christmas and the 12 days of Christmas. It's been that way throughout our Christian culture for centuries.
Hannukah is an 8 days celebration based on a lunar calendar that could go from late November to early December. This year it's from the 8th-15th of December.
Is it the basis of all these traditions you see in our culture? Does it inform Santa Claus (St Nicholas), mangers, wise men, in any way whatsoever? No. It does not.
This cultural celebration is about Christmas. The traditions are founded in Christianity and the Christmas story.
Refusing to permit employees to say Merry Christmas, to have "holiday trees", holiday lights, holiday cards, and on an on is pure opposition to our Christian culture and an unwillingness to acknowledge our presence, all of which is part of a brain-washing program.
Well, you say there's a lie in my post #29. There it is above in a blockquote, copy-pasted, the entire quote with nothing left out.
Show me the lie.
I already showed you the lie, it’s still in my clipboard:
The traditions are founded in Christianity and the Christmas story.
And then here in post 46 you make a statement that clearly shows that statement from 29 is wrong headed:
It makes as much sense to consign pine to a particular group as to consign the use of a building to a particular group.
Even in post 97 you yourself show the weakness of your statement in 29:
And celebrations at and around the solstices are much older than one religion or another.
So your own statements show the lie of insisting it is exclusively the Christmas season and the traditions are from Christianity and part of the Christmas story. You yourself have pointed out there have been holidays in this season long before Christianity and the traditions come from outside Christianity. You yourself have shown that your ENTIRE post 29 is a lie.
I wrote:
Is it the basis of all these traditions you see in our culture? Does it inform Santa Claus (St Nicholas), mangers, wise men, in any way whatsoever? No. It does not.This cultural celebration is about Christmas. The traditions are founded in Christianity and the Christmas story.
You shortened it to:
The traditions are founded in Christianity and the Christmas story.
So, you think that St Nicholas, manger, wise men are not part of the traditions about Christmas???
You're not serious are you? Or did you just misread what I wrote?
They are NOW a part of the traditions of Christmas. But they all have versions that pre-date their inclusion in Christmas. Santa Claus was Odin, coming from the same NON-Christian source as the “Christmas” tree. There’s plenty of pagan deities born in barns. And wandering magi pre-date Christianity also. So again, just like I said before, these tradition are not FOUNDED in Christianity. That’s the important word in that sentence, nowhere have I denied this stuff is part of the Christian tradition, I’m pointing out they weren’t FOUNDED in the Christian tradition. Most of them don’t become part of Christian tradition until over a thousand years after Christ, and all of them were included in a non-Christian traditions before Christians grabbed them up. They were all FOUNDED outside Christianity.
Sorry, discostu, but your answer doesn’t fly. I clearly was referring to Hannukah and that Hannukah doesn’t account for things like Santa, mangers, and wise men.
Those are all out of the Christian tradition.
Are you now telling me that you don’t think St Nicholas, mangers, and wise men are from the Christian tradition?
That’s just bizarre. The manger and wise men are mentioned in the gospels. And St Nicholas and his story are from the Nicene era and then forward. Nicholas was AT the Council of Nicaea in the early 300’s AD. He even got in trouble with Constantine at the time for a smack-down on an anti-trinitarian.
When you said the traditions were FOUNDED in Christianity that a sentence with meaning, and it’s meaning is way beyond Hanukkah. Had you just been referring to Hanukkah you would have said those traditions didn’t come from Judaism. Instead you said they were FOUNDED in Christianity, which rules out ALL other origins. Which you yourself have admitted wasn’t true.
You’ve descended to weaseling about what you said and outright lying about what I said. We’re done. You were wrong, you know you were wrong, man up and admit it, or just go away. Don’t care, I don’t truck with liars, bye.
Yes, I did not say those traditions are founded in Hannukah. I did say that St Nicholas, Manger, and Wise Men are founded in Christianity.
St Nicholas, Manger, and Wise Men ARE founded in Christianity.
You want to argue over St Nick, because arguing over manger and wise men is silly. They are in the gospel accounts.
The tradition of St Nick begins in 300’s AD era Christianity, since that is when the man lived.
I am finding it really hard to understand what your beef is. Do you think the wise men did not travel to Bethlehem? Do you think Jesus was not laid in a manger? Do you think that St Nicholas lived in Constantine’s time but was actually Hindu or something?
Please. Fill me in. You FIND all of these things in Christianity and not in Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. If you FIND them there, then that is where they are FOUNDED.
Go here for a complete discussion of St Nicholas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_of_Myra
I know you hate having your preconceptions challenged, but go read about the guy you think comes from Odin or something.
I disagree that L.L. Bean is against Christmas. After seeing this article, I noticed that our latest LL Bean catalog has “Christmas” on the cover and inside. I wonder how many other retailers are unfairly characterized on this list.
Fine if you disagree...report the “good” behavior to AFA.net
Jesus was born in the Fall as can be proven Biblically by the events surrounding the birth time of John the Baptist. Only the false Messiahs have a December 25 birthday. So I am very conflicted at this time of the year about saying Merry Christmas because that is endorsing the Satanic lie that the church has perpetuated.
Now, before any or all of you jump on me, please read about all of this at http://doubleportioninheritance.blogspot.com/2011/07/copyright-double-portion-inheritance_20.html
After you have read the information that can be found in any Encyclopedia as historical fact, then let's talk.
A friend of ours, an excellent Bible teacher visited Israel a few years ago. Of course she came home loaded with photos of places most of us can only hope to see.
As she presented each photo, she was careful to say that this particular spot is “thought to be the place” where this or that incident in the life of Christ took place. The answer was, “within a mile or two” of that spot.
So I say “Is Dec. 25th the real date of Jesus’s birth? Ah, within a month or two, not to mention, even a year or two.
Those of us on earth will never know the exact date, but I don’t think it matters. Really, we are talking about three months max. It doesn’t matter.
I don’t care what month it was, what year it was. I also do not care how many of the traditions I choose to incorporate into our celebration are supposed have pagan beginnings.
None of it is relevant. This is how I choose to celebrate the birth of Christ.
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