{"id":7,"date":"2007-11-28T10:15:10","date_gmt":"2007-11-28T10:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/11\/lowes-early-apology.html"},"modified":"2007-11-28T10:15:10","modified_gmt":"2007-11-28T10:15:10","slug":"lowes-early-apology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/11\/lowes-early-apology.html","title":{"rendered":"Lowes’ “Christmas Tree” Apology"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"087449027287md.jpg\"
\nLowes<\/a>, the hardware mega-store, made an early December Dilemma appearance when its Holiday 2007 catalog advertised “Family Trees,” not “Christmas Trees.” The American Family Association<\/a>, a conservative Christian organization, sent out an action alert to its members, prompting Lowes to email the chain en masse, and ask why the term “Christmas” is not used to describe the trees. “Lowe’s evidently did not want to offend any non-Christians, therefore they replaced “Christmas tree” with “Family tree.” Of course, if Christians are offended that is evidently ok,” the alert said.
\nWithin days, Lowes responded, saying that the oversight was a “breakdown in its proofing process,” an editorial error that got missed in the catalog’s publication process. Lowes reassured the AFA that magazine and television advertisements, as well as print flyers, refer to the trees as Christmas trees.
\nA visit to Lowes’ website reveals that in some cases, they may be trying for a middle ground: this item description simply calls it a Saratoga Spruce Pre-Lit Tree<\/a>, while a similar item listed here <\/a>calls itself a Saratoga Spruce Pre-Lit Christmas Tree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lowes, the hardware mega-store, made an early December Dilemma appearance when its Holiday 2007 catalog advertised “Family Trees,” not “Christmas Trees.” The American Family Association, a conservative Christian organization, sent out an action alert to its members, prompting Lowes to email the chain en masse, and ask why the term “Christmas” is not used to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas"],"yoast_head":"\nLowes' "Christmas Tree" Apology - December Dilemma Watch 2007<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/11\/lowes-early-apology.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lowes' "Christmas Tree" Apology - 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A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Divinity School, she has more than a decade of experience writing about religion and spirituality for Newsweek, The Washington Post, Spa Finder, Sojourners, Search, and many other publications. Her commentaries have also been heard on NPR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All Things Considered.\" When not at her desk, you can find her baking, in her garden, or rockin' out in water aerobics class. She lives in Arlington, Mass. Visit http:\/\/www.hollyrossi.com for more.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/author\/hrossi"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}