A virtual hoard of the shiny things I find on the internet.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Literally minutes after I posted the previous quote about commercialization being the actual “War on Christmas,” this link from the American Family Association came to me via Twitter, and I’m just… appalled.
Aside from the fact that our religious holiday is also a federally-sanctioned paid holiday for most people making it ridiculous that Christmas is becoming at all culturally marginalized… It’s just perverse that the way we measure how “Christmas-friendly” an organization is by the frequency with which they use the word “Christmas” in their marketing copy, which is designed to sell us more crap we don’t need.
Do these Christians not hear sermons about avoiding the crass materialism associated with secular celebrations of Christmas? Do they not worry about teaching their children that Christmas isn’t about stuff? This is a serious question- I have important, sincere differences of opinion with the AFA, but even when I didn’t, this was always a concern for me, my family, and the faith communities of which we were part.
Whether a retailer uses the word “Christmas” or not isn’t a measure of anything except of how closely that retailer panders to our individual preferences.
The “war on Christmas” is one waged in our own hearts, each and every season, when we must resist the temptation to let presents and decorations and the trappings of Christmas, the secular/cultural festival drown out the central message of Christmas, the Christian religious festival: Emmanuel, God With Us.
Pointing the finger at marketing for not using the word “Christmas” enough is easier than examining our own hearts, but that’s all the more reason we should engage in some self-examination.
