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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Saturday, December 5, 2009

Defending 'Christmas'


By Mark Barna
The Gazette

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Focus on the Family is worried Christmas is being forgotten.

For the third year in a row, Focus is taking retailers to task for using generic language like "season's greetings" and "holiday sales" with no reference to "Christmas," calling the omission an insult to the Christian faith.

But this year Focus has added a twist to its defense of Christmas.

Rather than have Focus staffers decide which retailers are unfriendly to Christmas and publish the results, customers can rate retailers themselves at Stand for www.Christmas.com, a Web site created by Focus that launched in late November.

Having the public decide is a better system, said Carrie Gordon Earll, a spokeswoman for Focus Action, the political arm of the family group. "This Web site puts consumers in the driver's seat and will be more accurate of how people really feel," she said.

At www.StandforChristmas.com, shoppers can choose among 30 retailers listed and rate them as to how "Christmas-friendly" they are.

Target hangs holiday banners inscribed with "Christmas" in its stores, and at Target.com there is a shopping section called "Christmas at Target." But company spokeswoman Kelly Basgen said Target also features holiday-neutral language.

"We know that Christmas is important to many of our guests," Basgen said, "but we also want to be inclusive and sensitive. ... "

Basgen said conservative Christian holiday campaigns like Focus' have not played a role in Target's marketing decisions.

The Focus-sponsored site also includes a video called "Many Happy Returns" by Focus Action videographer Stuart Shepard, who in August 2008 caught heat for asking readers to pray for rain on Barack Obama's speech during the Democratic National Convention at Denver's Invesco Field.

In the video, Shepard rails against retail holiday catalogs that never mention "Christ" or "Christmas."

"Retailers are free to choose whatever they want in holiday catalog land," Shepard says in the video, "but they need to be reminded that in these tough economic times, families are also free to choose where we'll spend our cash."