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If you are embarrassed to say the word Christ, or use His name in your advertising; if you want to demean the holiday by calling it “X-MAS,” go right ahead. But, like many millions of others, I will be your X-customer

Retailing in the Age of Political Correctness: “MERRY X-MAS!”  From Your X-Customer



It was December of 2007, in The Age of Political Correctness. As I drove to town from my house in the country, I passed by the local high school with its brand new $10,000 electronic sign—used to advertise school events like sports, drama, musicals, or the beginning day of vacation. “Pretty cool,” I thought as I watched the time of day and school events flash across the screen. As I passed by, something caught my eye. The sign read:

X-MAS PROGRAM DECEMBER 17TH

I drove on to work, mumbling to myself about the school official who was either too politically correct, disdainful of the holiday, or simply too lazy to type in the name of the Person for whom the season was named. You know, the Baby born a couple millennia ago, who died to save mankind? There was plenty of room on the sign and six more letters would not have made a great deal of difference. “X-MAS” is less controversial. It eliminates the need to say that word. Next , I went to Wally World to buy some Christmas odds and ends. You know, that multi-billion dollar behemoth where every person in America shops? The one that buys at least 60% of their crap from China and is one of China’s largest trading partners , reaping billions of dollars in profits from dumb Americans like me—most of whom are Christians who celebrate the holiday? You know, the store that, at the beginning of September, trots out the Christmas lights, trees, decorations, and cheap toys that play “Jingle Bells” when you press their stomachs, and puts it where the lawn and garden section used to be days earlier?

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It is not enough that they rush the season, forcing you to endure the tinny sounds of cheap Chinese toys playing ten seconds of “Frosty the Snowman” each time you walk by for the next several months. To add sacrilege to injury some employee with floppy reindeer antlers on his or her head wishes you a politically correct “Happy Holiday!” beneath banners advertising ‘X-MAS SALE’ when you walk in the door. This day, I decided that Wally World was not the place I wanted to spend my money, so I walked out. Somehow, I just could not bring myself to spend Christmas money at a place that celebrates X-Mas—whatever that is. I am certain that my pathetic little gesture made no difference in the scheme of things. I doubt very much that Wally World missed the $50 that I might have spent that day. Nevertheless, it gave me the slightest bit of satisfaction to know that during the Christmas Season of 2007, Wally World made fifty dollars less than nine billion that year. The next day, driving to town, I passed the high school again. This day the sign read:

X-MAS PLAY—“A X-MAS CAROL BY DICKENS” DECEMBER 19TH

Frankly, Dickens is my favorite author and I thought I had read everything of his. Until this day, I did not know that Dickens had written a play called “A X-MAS CAROL.” Either the incompetent person who typed in the message on the electronic sign was a bad speller, or wanted to save energy by leaving off the Savior’s name again (concededly, typing twelve extra characters can wear a person out). Whichever it was, the name of the Person for whom we celebrate the holiday was conspicuously missing once again. I wonder if the idiot who typed in the title or the principal of the school who failed to correct it, understood the irony. Had they studied Dickens, they might have understood that--while many people consider “A Christmas Carol” a secular story featuring an old grump, some ghostly visitors, and a change of heart--in truth , Dickens was a devout, if subtle, Christian whose mission in life was to gently bring people to Christ. Thus, while the school was trying to be politically correct by “X-ing out” the name of the One whose birth made the holiday possible, the truth is that they were enacting a deeply religious, Christian play. So it was, in December of 2007, in The Age of Political Correctness, I decided I would no longer play the X-Mas game. I would not attend any X-MAS events at any school that cannot spell the holiday, or whose faculty is so inept that they cannot spell Dickens’ most famous short story title. I made it a point to call ahead to every store before I bothered to drive several miles and spend my Christmas money. I asked them a simple question: “Are you saying Merry Christmas this year?” If they said, “No, we have been told to say Happy Holidays,” I politely reply, “Thank you very much; I will not be shopping there this year” and hang up. It is a pathetic little gesture, of course. But, multiply it by tens of millions of shoppers who—like me --are fed up to their sleigh bells with political correctness during our Holy Season, and perhaps they will get the message, these merchants who want our money, but are too afraid to call this holiday what it really is. It is a very simple concept, really. If you are embarrassed to say the word Christ, or use His name in your advertising; if you want to demean the holiday by calling it “X-MAS,” go right ahead. But, like many millions of others, I will be your X-customer. Copyright © William Kevin Stoos

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William Kevin Stoos -- Bio and Archives

Copyright © 2020 William Kevin Stoos
William Kevin Stoos (aka Hugh Betcha) is a writer, book reviewer, and attorney, whose feature and cover articles have appeared in the Liguorian, Carmelite Digest, Catholic Digest, Catholic Medical Association Ethics Journal, Nature Conservancy Magazine, Liberty Magazine, Social Justice Review, Wall Street Journal Online and other secular and religious publications.  He is a regular contributing author for The Bread of Life Magazine in Canada. His review of Shadow World, by COL. Robert Chandler, propelled that book to best seller status. His book, The Woodcarver (]And Other Stories of Faith and Inspiration) © 2009, William Kevin Stoos (Strategic Publishing Company)—a collection of feature and cover stories on matters of faith—was released in July of 2009. It can be purchased though many internet booksellers including Amazon, Tower, Barnes and Noble and others. Royalties from his writings go to support the Carmelites. He resides in Wynstone, South Dakota.


“His newest book, The Wind and the Spirit (Stories of Faith and Inspiration)” was released in 2011 with all the author’s royalties go to support the Carmelite sisters.”


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