Group wants stores to bring back Christmas

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Focus on the Family is worried Christmas is being forgotten.

For the third year in a row, Focus is taking retailers to task for using generic language like "season's greetings" and "holiday sales" with no reference to "Christmas," calling the omission an insult to the Christian faith.

"The eradication of Christmas is a politically correct idea we can't have sacred ideas in our culture," said Carrie Gordon Earll, a spokeswoman for Focus Action, the political arm of the family group in north Colorado Springs.

But this year, Focus has added a twist to its defense of Christmas. Rather than have Focus staffers decide which retailers are unfriendly to Christmas and publish the results, customers can rate retailers themselves at StandforChristmas.com, a Web site created by Focus that launched in late November.

Having the public decide is a better system, Earll said. "This Web site puts consumers in the driver's seat and will be more accurate of how people really feel," she said. "We think this will take off like a rocket."

At StandforChristmas.com, shoppers can choose among 30 retailers listed and rate them as to how "Christmas-friendly" they are. So far, the retailers with strong positive ratings are Target (87 percent), Walmart (67 percent), Bass Pro Shop (80 percent) and Lowe's (80 percent), while some with low Christmas-friendly ratings are Old Navy (0 percent), Dillard's (33 percent) and Best Buy (7 percent).

Ratings, however, could change dramatically as more people vote. As of Nov. 25, each retailer had received on average only about 60 ratings.

Target hangs holiday banners inscribed with "Christmas" in its stores, and at Target.com there is a shopping section called "Christmas at Target."

But company spokeswoman Kelly Basgen said Target also features holiday-neutral language. "We know that Christmas is important to many of our guests," Basgen said, "but we also want to be inclusive and sensitive to everyone."

Basgen said conservative Christian holiday campaigns like Focus' have not played a role in Target's marketing decisions.

The Focus-sponsored site also includes a video called "Many Happy Returns" by Focus Action videographer Stuart Shepard, who in August 2008 caught heat for asking readers to pray for rain on Barack Obama's speech during the Democratic National Convention at Denver's Invesco Field.

In the video, Shepard rails against retail holiday catalogs that never mention "Christ" or "Christmas."

"Retailers are free to choose whatever they want in holiday catalog land," Shepard says in the video, "but they need to be reminded that in these tough economic times, families are also free to choose where we'll spend our cash."