The American Family Association (www.afa.net) publishes a “naughty or nice” list, so to speak, of major retailers based on whether they are “Christmas-friendly.”
Among the retailers making the pro-Christmas list are electronics giant Best Buy, home-improvement stores Lowe’s and The Home Depot, discount retailers such as Target and Walmart, and the drug store chains Rite Aid and Walgreen’s. AFA considers a retailer to be Christmas-friendly if it uses the term Christmas regularly in its store, advertising campaigns and website.
Companies “against” Christmas use the term sparingly or refrain from its use altogether. One of the names on the naughty list is Kroger, which (yikes) happens to be where I do most of our family’s grocery shopping. The site features links to these retailers’ customer service departments where concerned consumers can lodge comments about each company’s stance on Christmas.
AFA is a pro-family activist organization that focuses on the influence of television and other media on society. AFA’s complete list of major retailers and how they recognize Christmas can be found here.
A question for Everyday Christian readers: How does a company’s stance towards Christmas affect your buying decisions? Have you really noticed a difference between Christmas-friendly stores and those that are more neutral? Is this something we should be concerned about?
Read about the “Reverse Discrimination of Christmas” here: http://richardtgarner.blogspot.com/2010/01/reverse-discrimination-of-christmas.html