Wal-Mart employee fired for Christmas email
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/18/happy_holidays/
In a sphincters-held-tight culture such as this, little things mean a lot, so when the giant US big box retailer Wal-Mart recently changed a greeting from “Merry Christmas!” to “Happy Holidays!” it drew complaints.
And here the troubles began.
The emails duly arrived, and a customer-facing rep took it on herself to explain the change with this ill-advised exhibition of learning.
The employee, who we know only as Kirby, launched into a fantastically earnest historical explanation of what the Christmas Holiday Seasonâ„¢ really meant.
“Christmas is actually a continuation of the Siberian shaman and Visigoth traditions,” Kirby replied.
“Santa is also borrowed from the [Caucasus], mistletoe from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, the time from the Visigoth and the tree from the worship of Baal. It is a wide wide world,” the helpful Kirby replied, making sure every I was dotted and every T crossed.
All of which is true, but as you can imagine, these weren’t exactly the soothing words the complainer wanted to hear.
and
What’s a god-fearing literalist to do, except call out the fire brigade?
In this instance, it arrived in the form of Catholic League demagogue Bill Donohue. A boycott was duly summoned, Wal-Mart relented, and heads rolled. Kirby is no longer an Wal-Mart employee, we learn, which is a shame, as in her own painfully literal (and right-on) way, she was only trying to be helpful.
Don’t you just love the Christmas spirit and love your fellow man attitude? Thanks to the Catholic League, the world is safe again!
…. but she did forget to mention that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ (none of the other items matter at all, except to commercial interests) and that Congress approved it as a national holiday – the latter means “holy day”….. 🙂
Also, she did neglect to explain why something that ahd been okay for 100+ years, all of a sudden had to be changed.
Well this season is a celebration of the birth of Christ for *some people*, about 1/3 of the people tops if the last numbers I saw were accurate which includes people who truly believe or simply state that that is what they follow[1].
That is the whole point around switching to happy holidays or seasons greetings. It is a more generic to the global population as a whole as we move into a global economy and society. Celebrations at the end of the year have been around for thousands of years in every culture. Christianity and the Christ’s birthday stuff is actually the “Johnny come lately” celebration of the bunch until the Scientologists start celebrating something to do with the Aliens at the core of their religion (well I should say that apparently there are aliens at the core of their religion as that is the best info I have not being a high ranking Scientologist).
Not sure where you get the National Holiday = Holy Day business. That is obviously wrong. Look at the list of national holidays some time. Last I heard, of the 10 or so national holidays of the US, 1 is a “holy” day and I would argue that it isn’t so much holy as no one is going to show up to work anyway. BTW, congress doesn’t designate holidays for the country. Congress only has the power to designate holidays for D.C. and the federal government. Each state designates its own holidays but those tend to follow the federal government for obvious reasons…
joe
[1] If everyone around you rubs blue mud in their belly button, it is safer to rub blue mud in your belly button too whether you believe it prevents dandruff or not. I would argue that the true number is far less than 1/3 but I have nothing but to back that with other than personal experience and gut feeling.
I know many people who have been baptized and declare themselves as Christian but the only meaning of Christmas to them is Santa and presents. If someone is asked directly if they are a Christian in this country, they will generally say yes whether they are or not due to social pressures.
For me personally, I don’t care if you call it Christmas or Chanukah or Kwanzaa or Yuletide or Shichi Go San or Hanukkah or Winter Solstice or anything else. I like the time off and the celebrations and the visiting with people I care about. I just wish we all got a clue and moved it to like June or or something when the weather wasn’t so nasty because it makes no sense for people to do so much traveling about during the worst part of the year for most of the US.