{"id":10157,"date":"2011-12-23T19:58:07","date_gmt":"2011-12-24T00:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=10157"},"modified":"2011-12-22T10:42:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-22T15:42:00","slug":"nationwide-merry-christmas-billboards-brewed-up-by-five-women-over-morning-coffee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/nationwide-merry-christmas-billboards-brewed-up-by-five-women-over-morning-coffee","title":{"rendered":"Over morning coffee, five friends inspire “Merry Christmas” billboards nationwide"},"content":{"rendered":"

“As Christians, we were offended,” the five told the morning news shows.<\/p>\n

Over coffee, Joanne Brown, Linda Bennett, Judi Hanna, Laurie Kramer and Pat See, all of the Youngstown, Ohio, area — lamented Americans’ increasingly “politically correct” pressure to mumble “Happy Holidays” rather than risk offending someone by saying “Merry Christmas.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Three of the ladies and one of their billboards<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What could they do about it?\u00a0They came up with the idea of billboards. Within weeks, they had raised enough money for two billboards reading, \u201cI miss hearing you say Merry Christmas\u201d and \u201cWhy have you stopped saying Merry Christmas?\u201d Both were signed, \u201cJesus.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next year, they raised enough money for four billboards. Now<\/p>\n

CLICK for next page<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“As Christians, we were offended,” the five told the morning news shows. Over coffee, Joanne Brown, Linda Bennett, Judi Hanna, Laurie Kramer and Pat See, all of the Youngstown, Ohio, area — lamented Americans’ increasingly “politically correct” pressure to mumble “Happy Holidays” rather than risk offending someone by saying “Merry Christmas.” What could they do…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,8],"tags":[1887,2204,2281],"class_list":["post-10157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","category-news","tag-billboards","tag-christian","tag-christmas"],"yoast_head":"\nOver morning coffee, five friends inspire "Merry Christmas" billboards nationwide<\/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\/news\/2011\/12\/nationwide-merry-christmas-billboards-brewed-up-by-five-women-over-morning-coffee\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Over morning coffee, five friends inspire "Merry Christmas" billboards nationwide\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"“As Christians, we were offended,” the five told the morning news shows. Over coffee, Joanne Brown, Linda Bennett, Judi Hanna, Laurie Kramer and Pat See, all of the Youngstown, Ohio, area — lamented Americans’ increasingly “politically correct” pressure to mumble “Happy Holidays” rather than risk offending someone by saying “Merry Christmas.” What could they do…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/12\/nationwide-merry-christmas-billboards-brewed-up-by-five-women-over-morning-coffee\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-12-24T00:58:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-12-22T15:42:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/12\/billboard-ladies-e1323432270101.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Over morning coffee, five friends inspire \"Merry Christmas\" billboards nationwide","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\/news\/2011\/12\/nationwide-merry-christmas-billboards-brewed-up-by-five-women-over-morning-coffee","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Over morning coffee, five friends inspire \"Merry Christmas\" billboards nationwide","og_description":"“As Christians, we were offended,” the five told the morning news shows. 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