The American Family Association is suggesting that adults buy nothing from stores for each other next year. Sliding an Xbox 360 to a child would be OK, said association president Tim Wildmon, but adults should funnel their consumer cash to a charity that helps the poor -- preferably one friendly to "Christian values" such as the Salvation Army.If grown-ups really want to express their appreciation for someone through a Christmas gift, Wildmon suggests that they either make something themselves or give a gift of their time. He wants folks to focus on Christmas as the birth of Jesus Christ, not as the day before the after-Christmas sales begin.
"We want people to get back to what Christmas should be about," Wildmon said.
Wow... I agree with them about something? How weird is that?
Not that their motives are entirely pure:
"Such an effort will remind all of us, including retailers, what Christmas is all about," the American Family Association chairman, Donald Wildmon, Tim Wildmon's father, wrote in an e-mail to supporters last week. "I very much believe that you will see retailers get on board promoting Christmas instead of Happy Holidays."If they miss us shopping next Christmas, maybe they will respect us more."
Of course, many of his colleagues are hemming and hawing and saying things like...
"I certainly understand Tim Wildmon's concern to focus on the true meaning of Christmas," said Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel. The conservative legal organization's "Friend or Foe Christmas" campaign promised to file suit against anyone who spread what the group saw as misinformation about how Christmas can be celebrated in schools and public spaces.
"But I fail to see how that (not buying gifts) would bring back the essence of Christmas," Staver said. "And I don't think it would affect retailers. Besides, that's part of the joy of Christmas -- to give someone a gift to show your appreciation for them."
Jan LaRue, legal counsel with Concerned Women for America, another major conservative player in the Christmas campaign, said that while the idea of contributing to the needy was noble, "I don't know if it has to be linked to punishing retailers. A lot of believers, Christians and Jews, own small businesses that would be punished by the loss of income during the Christmas season."
Michael Lerner of Tikkun weighs in...
"Liberals and civil libertarians would be making a huge mistake to see this as merely the rantings of a few overt anti-Semites and anti-civil-liberties extremists. They articulate a legitimate concern that many Christians say privately: Their children have learned that Christmas is about buying -- and the person with the most expensive gifts wins!"Our task is to help them understand that the solution is not blaming secular people, civil libertarians, Jews, gays or anyone else," Lerner wrote, "but instead to recognize that the emptiness or feeling of loneliness of 'lack' has been forced upon them by market values that they need to become aware of and then reject."
Don't hold your breath, Mr. Lerner.
