{"id":921,"date":"2007-12-11T14:52:49","date_gmt":"2007-12-11T14:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/dechristmasing-america-so.html"},"modified":"2007-12-11T14:52:49","modified_gmt":"2007-12-11T14:52:49","slug":"dechristmasing-america-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/dechristmasing-america-so.html","title":{"rendered":"De-Christmasing America – so?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some people are pretty ticked that there is less “Christmas” in Christmas<\/a> – at least publicly.<\/p>\n

It used to be that retailers would call the famous holiday plant for what it was \u2013 a \u201cChristmas tree.\u201d
\nBut current trends in Christmas advertising reveal that many stores are replacing references to \u201cChristmas\u201d with what they feel is a less offensive description of their products.
\nK-Mart, owned by Sears Holding Corporation, is the target of an e-mail alert issued by one Christian legal group for its renaming of \u201cChristmas trees\u201d to \u201choliday trees\u201d or simply \u201ctrees\u201d in its advertising.
\nAccording to the Fla.-based Liberty Counsel, when one of its supporters asked K-Mart for an explanation of the company\u2019s disregard for Christmas, a Sears Holding Corporation representative said the company replaced the phrase in order not to draw complaints from non-Christians.
\n\u201cThe reason for our use of holiday tree is due to the [sic] Sears Holding is a very diverse company, we do not want to offend any of our associates, but also our valued customers,\u201d responded Vincent V. of Sears. \u201cWe decided to call them holiday trees because even if Christians are the only religion that uses a Christmas tree, we still do not want complaints from other customers of different religions complaining about our use of Christmas.\u201d
\nLiberty Counsel urged its supporters last week to contact the president and CEO of Sears to protest the use of \u201choliday trees\u201d as offensive to shoppers who celebrate Christmas. The group has released names of retailers who censor Christmas in its annual \u201cNaughty or Nice\u201d list, which advises Christians where to shop for Christmas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I used to be in the ticked off camp. Christmas is, after all, the big deal of the holiday season. More people – by far – celebrate it than celebrate any of the other holidays. It isn’t even close.
\nBut I don’t think that anymore. It really doesn’t matter what retailers do. It really doesn’t matter what governments do. At Christmas it matters what churches do. At Christmas it matters what families do.
\nWe waste too much time and too much energy focusing on things that aren’t important to faith.
\nWhat does it matter if stores and governments acknowledge Christmas as the celebration of Christ’s birth? It simply doesn’t. These issues are a grand distraction to our faith. They are things that can make Christians feel good about their faith without requiring anything of them.
\nThat is the opposite of the faith that Jesus instructed his followers to live. Jesus said his followers should expect hardship and trials and oppression. He didn’t tell them to expect Sears to have a Christmas tree. He told them to sacrifice and serve and give and love. He didn’t tell them to expect governments to celebrate is birth.
\nPerhaps de-Christianizing Christmas is the best thing for the Christian faith IF it forces Christians to focus more on their own spirituality and less on the nation’s spirituality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some people are pretty ticked that there is less “Christmas” in Christmas – at least publicly. It used to be that retailers would call the famous holiday plant for what it was \u2013 a \u201cChristmas tree.\u201d But current trends in Christmas advertising reveal that many stores are replacing references to \u201cChristmas\u201d with what they feel…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"yoast_head":"\nDe-Christmasing America - so? - J Walking<\/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\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/dechristmasing-america-so.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"De-Christmasing America - so? - J Walking\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Some people are pretty ticked that there is less “Christmas” in Christmas – at least publicly. It used to be that retailers would call the famous holiday plant for what it was \u2013 a \u201cChristmas tree.\u201d But current trends in Christmas advertising reveal that many stores are replacing references to \u201cChristmas\u201d with what they feel…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/dechristmasing-america-so.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"J Walking\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-11T14:52:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Kuo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"De-Christmasing America - so? - J Walking","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/dechristmasing-america-so.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"De-Christmasing America - so? - J Walking","og_description":"Some people are pretty ticked that there is less “Christmas” in Christmas – at least publicly. It used to be that retailers would call the famous holiday plant for what it was \u2013 a \u201cChristmas tree.\u201d But current trends in Christmas advertising reveal that many stores are replacing references to \u201cChristmas\u201d with what they feel…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/dechristmasing-america-so.html","og_site_name":"J Walking","article_published_time":"2007-12-11T14:52:49+00:00","author":"David Kuo","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/dechristmasing-america-so.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/dechristmasing-america-so.html","name":"De-Christmasing America - so? - J Walking","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-12-11T14:52:49+00:00","dateModified":"2007-12-11T14:52:49+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#\/schema\/person\/e18271b4c5ffaa74854f9b286f9920da"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/dechristmasing-america-so.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/dechristmasing-america-so.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/2007\/12\/dechristmasing-america-so.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"De-Christmasing America – so?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/","name":"J Walking","description":"David Kuo blog, faith, politics, christian blog, tempting faith","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#\/schema\/person\/e18271b4c5ffaa74854f9b286f9920da","name":"David Kuo","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/033\/03358ddc67aa385b96785ce75f483c23x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/033\/03358ddc67aa385b96785ce75f483c23x96.jpg","caption":"David Kuo"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/author\/dkuo"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jwalking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}