First Baptist Church of Dallas, TX, put up this web site,
Grinch Alert! to help keep Christmas everywhere.
Have you encountered a Grinch this Christmas season? Share your experiences here at GrinchAlert.com! Here, you can nominate businesses and organizations that shut-out expressions of Christmas in their interactions with the public via marketing, advertising and public relations. When companies use misplaced political correctness to halt the celebration of Christmas, they belong on the Naughty List.
We also want to know which companies are celebrating Christmas with excitement and meaning—especially those who keep Christ in Christmas where He belongs! Those companies and organizations will be placed on our Nice List. Help us preserve Christ this Christmas.
Christmas has a secular side that business can exploit if they don't wish to promote religion.
If we look at the
Naughty List, I see some rather unreasonable expectations from businesses.
Since we are not a theocracy, why expect any government entity to promote any one religious holiday?
Since we are a land of freedom, why expect a secular business to provide religious merchandise?
I understand why some Christians feel there is a "war against Christmas". They've been allowed to do as they please for so long, they don't like what they view as "being restricted".
Some say the government can promote all religions, but don't want to allow the choice of doing nothing.
If one wants merchandise with religious icons, go to a religious store or make them yourself. Why chastise a secular business that chooses to be neutral or secular?
The word
holiday refers to more than just religious observances.
1: holy day
2: a day on which one is exempt from work; specifically : a day marked by a general suspension of work in commemoration of an event
3: chiefly British : vacation often used in the phrase on holiday often used in plural
4: a period of exemption or relief
There is more than one religious festival in December. So the greeting of Happy Holidays is appropriate for a secular Business. Some people consider the season to run from Thanksgiving to New Year's day. In that case there are three Federal holidays.
Businesses don't want Christmas to go away, typically it's the largest annual economic stimulus for many nations; but they're going to make it serve their purpose not that of the religion.
Christians just don't have control over the government or businesses like they thought they did. I think that's what bothers them.