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To: Marlin4570

"Companies don't mind making a buck off this Countries Christian roots they just don't want to honor its roots..."

Then why are Christians continuing to buy stuff? The retailers have co-opted a holiday that gives them their income for the year and yet they refuse to honor those who pay for it.

Yeah, it is a multicultural country, but I have yet to see the retailer that will make the year's income on Kwanza, Hanukka, or Ramadan.

We stopped giving lots of presents a few years ago and just exchange one small thing on Christmas Eve. Now, the Christmas dinner after services is something else entirely!!! ( - ;


42 posted on 11/11/2005 4:48:09 AM PST by OpusatFR
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To: OpusatFR
I've read this thread and one last night, and I have to admit I still don't get the controversy. Wal-Mart, as a retailer, has to try to be all things to all customers. The link of the Christmas items to the holiday page simply does not strike me as all that sinister. As another poster suggested in yesterday's thread, it seems to recognize that for many people, "Christmas" has become synonomous with "holiday," regardless of that person's faith. That conflation of Christmas with a more generic holiday season, to me, is troubling only in that it represents the ever-increasing commercialization of Christmas (which is another issue entirely and one for which many of us must share blame).

As another poster pointed out, Wal-Mart carries a pretty significant selection of Christian items. I just don't see the company's failure to actively promote Christmas (assuming that's what this is) as that big of a deal. From the selection I've seen, the Christmas/Christian items seem to vastly outnumber Hannukah/Kwanzaa/solstice/whatever merchandise. That's a business decision, I suspect, not an endorsement. I don't expect Wal-Mart to celebrate my holidays for me; I hope and expect they will provide merchandise that I use to mark the holiday for myself and my family. I expect my faith to be tolerated, but the rest is up to me. I don't need my beliefs affirmed by every Wal-Mart greeter.

I can see where the hypocrisy bothers you, but stores commercializing and profiting from holidays, often contrary to the meaning of the holiday, is nothing new. I don't think Veterans' Day, for instance, was supposed to honor our military by putting winter coats on sale! That reminds me-- I checked google this morning. You know how every holiday, the google logo is modified to reflect it (groundhog on Feb. 2, that kind of thing)? I see nothing on the google logo to honor Veterans' Day. Now that, I admit, bugged me!

45 posted on 11/11/2005 5:00:48 AM PST by GraceCoolidge
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