Holly Lebowitz Rossi: November 2007 Archives

The Catholic League, a group that is famously active in the annual holiday culture wars, has released a list of early offenders in what League president Bill Donohue calls efforts "to censor Christmas." Among those he lists are:

-- The Los Angeles City Council, which renamed the annual "Hollywood Christmas Parade" the "Hollywood Santa Parade"

-- Chattanooga, Tenn., which banned a nativity scene from its public December festivities.

-- Briarcliff Manor, New York, which elected to ban all religious symbols after it was ordered to erect a creche next to a menorah.

-- Fort Collins, Colorado, which allows red and green lights to be displayed on City Hall, but allows only "secular symbols" inside the building.

Said Donohue, "The multicultural monsters are rearing their ugly heads once again, showing what they really mean by tolerance for diversity.”

The conservative group American Family Association also is continuing to call out companies that it believes are undermining the public celebration of Christmas. A recent action alert has urged members to write to the department store chain Kohl's for "taking a misleading, in-your-face attitude when it comes to Christmas."

Specifically, the group alleges that Kohl's has ignored a promise they made to include the word "Christmas" prominently in their holiday marketing materials. The chain says in its "About Us" frequently-asked-questions area, "Like last year, Kohl’s is embracing the Christmas spirit and will include "Christmas" in its advertising. It will be featured in print, TV, and radio throughout the season." But the AFA is disappointed in the showing so far. The Kohl's homepage touts a "Holiday Shop" and "Home for the Holidays" but does not mention Christmas, and Kohl's mentions Christmas in only 6 of their 18 holiday fliers. "Why would Kohl's ban Christmas? The obvious answer is they don't want to offend non-Christians," the AFA action alert said.

A second action alert is directed at The Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic. Despite efforts last year to urge these comapnies to include "Christmas" in their December materials, "holidays" rule the day, and the only item that contains the word Christmas this year is a pair of Gap boxers.

Santas across Australia have thrown their jolliness by the wayside in protest of a new instruction that they say "ha, ha, ha" instead of the traditional "ho, ho, ho." According to The Daily Telegraph, Santa is "a rebel with a 'claus.'"

Westaff, a Santa training agency that supplies Santas to hundreds of stores across Australia, has told its trainees that "ho, ho, ho" could frighten children and be considered derogatory to women because of the connotation of the word "ho."

Westaff's Santa coordinator wrote in an email explaining the company's position, "Part of our advice to our Santas is that they should be mindful of children having their first Santa experience. "We ask our Santas to try techniques such as lowering their tone of voice and using 'ha, ha, ha' to encourage the children to come forward and meet Santa. We wish you and your family a very merry Christmas."

After some Santas quit the training program over the issue and others expressed dismay at the language change, Westaff said that the ultimate choice of what greeting to proffer is up to each individual Santa.

In an episode that Bangor, Maine residents are calling "chilling," the town's celebration of Kwanzaa has been canceled after threats of violence were made against the area's African-Americans. A 75-year-old man, who is currently at large, has threatened repeatedly to shoot members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and a court document reports that he also said, "Maine should be a ‘white’ state," according to BangorDailyNews.com.

In light of the threats, NAACP meetings have been held in secret, with guards posted at the door. The Kwanzaa celebration, which would have taken place at a local Unitarian Universalist Church, has been canceled, though the group is hoping to be able to publicly mark Martin Luther King Day in January.

In Saginaw, Michigan this week, the annual Dickens Christmas Festival was re-named the Dickens Holiday Festival. The name change came because festival organizers face a dwindling advertising budget, and removing "Christmas" from the name allows them to advertise in public schools.

Downtown Development board member Kriss Roethleisberger told WNEM News that the new nomenclature does not mean that other Christmas-related aspects of the festival will be secularized. “The spirit of the event has not changed," he said. "We have the live Nativity, the lighted Christmas parade, the community Christmas sing. It was simply that on one piece of marketing material we had the use the word ‘holiday.’”

A school board near Pensacola, Florida found itself embroiled in a debate over what to call the vacation that students get between December 22 and January 2. In a 2008-2009 school year calendar that was up for approval by the...

With environmental consciousness rising nationwide, it's not surprising that one bone of contention this holiday season is how December has become a hotbed of consumerism and consumption. Green-minded bloggers and organizations are stepping up in hopes of convincing people that...

The American Family Association is sponsoring a program to make sure that "Merry Christmas" doesn't disappear from the American lexicon this December. "Project Merry Christmas" invites churches to "proclaim to our communities that Christmas is not just a winter...

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...

So we all know that the holidays are not all boycotts and arguments - in fact, the great majority of us find ways to live with our neighbors of all faiths in meaningful and even spiritual ways. As a companion...

Well, it's official. Though the holiday season seems to have begun the day after Halloween, the December Dilemma's time is just starting, hitting its peak as it always does, in that hectic period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. What is the...