A real Wal-Mart Christmas

It’s been big news in certain circles for a few years now; Wal-Mart, in it’s continuing campaign to be less offensive, had asked it’s employees (also known as ‘associates’) not to say ‘Merry Christmas’ at work but to rather use the more generic and far sillier greeting ‘Happy Holidays’ to greet customers. Of course this set off the usual storm of ranting and raving by all the right-wing talking heads in the media who are always pointing to this or that as proof of the deterioration of western civilization. The religious-right joined in (not wanting to be left out in the cold) and boycotts were called and there were stories of real religious folk (as opposed to the members of the religious-right which is actually about as religious as your average atheist is) setting up in front of Wal-Marts and singing Christmas carols. Yeah, well whatever floats your boat I guess. I found that throughout all this turmoil I was still sleeping fine at night (I should probably point out that I am neither for nor against Wal-Mart, I just choose not to shop there).

I may have been wrong though and it looks like civilization has been saved. A Wal-Mart spokesperson announced that Wal-Mart had “learned (it’s) lesson. We’re not afraid to use the term ‘Merry Christmas’. We’ll use it early and we’ll use it often.” This year Wal-Mart will run ads “trumpeting Christmas” (for those who hadn’t noticed it coming by some other method), all Wal-Mart stores will play Christmas carols constantly up until the big day and there will be signs counting down the days themselves, over sixty percent more merchandise will be labeled ‘Christmas’ in preparation for the post-Christmas sales and there is probably other stuff to come they haven’t announced yet. Yep, it’s all good.

So now the right-wing loonies and “religious” nuts can all pollute the airwaves with their triumphant shouts of victory. The world’s largest retailer is now going to sell more during the Christmas season, raising the commercial aspect of this time of year just that little bit. That makes us all winners. Yay.

Anyway… Humouroceros