Oh, good grief.

“

Zitat

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Santa comes along with a decorated tree; he doesn’t come with a spaceship,” Maria Lovdahl fumed.

The Williston Park mother of two was shopping Thursday night when she spotted the apparently futuristic Santa photo kiosk.

“Me and my husband looked at each other and said, ‘What is that?’ ” Lovdahl recalled. “They said it was because people were offended by the traditional Christmas display, that they had gotten comments in prior years.”

After a lifetime of shopping at Roosevelt Field and bringing her kids there, Lovdahl said, “I won’t be shopping there this year.”

Betty Borrero, 32, heard so much about the new display she came to see it for herself.

“I bring my child, I want to see the big tree in the background. This is blank,” she said, noting she’ll take her kid to Macy’s for this year’s holiday pictures.

Mall management, which charges anywhere from $24.99 to $59.99 for pictures with Santa, confirmed the change was made to avoid offending people, said Caren Toal, who was with Lovdahl.

“The people who answered the phone at the mall actually said, in order not to offend anyone, they were simplifying the Christmas display,” said Toal, who is also now boycotting the mall.

The holiday hullabaloo sparked an uproar on Facebook and Twitter Saturday. Meanwhile, a Change.org petition garnered 16,000 signatures in protest of a similar shift in decor at a North Carolina mall owned by Simon Properties, which also operates Roosevelt Field."

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http://nypost.com/2015/11/07/long-island...lacier-display/

My local mall is also owned and operated by Simon but I rarely go there (What male voluntarily goes to any mall prior to the night before Christmas, I ask you?), but maybe I will go down there and check it out.

Companion story:

Some Christians have taken to social media channels to protest the new Starbucks holiday cup, which they say is conspicuously devoid of images of both Christmas and Jesus Christ himself. The new cup, which is shades of red with the Starbucks logo, showed up in stores late last month.

“Starbucks REMOVED CHRISTMAS from their cups because they hate Jesus,” wrote Joshua Feuerstein in a viral Facebook post with nearly 10 million views. In an accompanying video, Feuerstein encourages customers to give their name as “Merry Christmas” to force Starbucks employees to say the phrase. The movement had caught on by Sunday with the hashtag “MerryChristmasStarbucks” trending on Facebook.

Starbucks has offered special holiday cups since 1997 with designs varying from year to year. Jeffrey Fields, the company’s vice president of design and content, explained this year’s design as a “more open way to usher in the holidays.”

“Starbucks has become a place of sanctuary during the holidays,” he said in a press release. “We’re embracing the simplicity and the quietness of it.”

http://time.com/4104107/starbucks-holiday-cup-christians/

Time must have gone out of its way to find that quote about hating Jesus or made it up. But please make Christians look as stupid as is possible Time.



I don't drink their coffee anyway. Taste like sludge.

As someone else pointed out "freedom of religion" allows for others to NOT express religious thoughts and themes. Me personally, I don't much care for those types of organizations and tend to avoid them. So, they don't get my money. But, good grief, if they don't want to say "Merry Christmas", so what?

(And, like Algernon, I love saying "Merry Christmas". At work, I even go to the point of saying "Christmas holidays, no, sorry, I meant winter break" whenever I can.)

Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #4

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As someone else pointed out "freedom of religion" allows for others to NOT express religious thoughts and themes. Me personally, I don't much care for those types of organizations and tend to avoid them. So, they don't get my money. But, good grief, if they don't want to say "Merry Christmas", so what?

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Zitat

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A New York mall attempted to design a holiday Santa display that would not “offend” anyone. Therefore, they removed any sign of the holiday and left shoppers with a stark white seating area that was supposed to represent a glacier. However, it appears the overly-bland display was so plain that it actually did offend shoppers to the point of a boycott. The “politically correct” Christmas display has since been removed and shoppers are delighted to see the plastic glacier go.

The Daily Mail reports that Roosevelt Field Mall, in New York, typically hosts a holiday village for the Christmas season. The cheery display draws crowds as children flock to the area to visit with Santa Claus. However, things were much different this year with mall patrons so upset by a poorly designed Santa seating area that they threatened the mall with a boycott.

Ironically, the mall claims they opted for the “futuristic” plastic glacier design in a bid not to offend anyone this holiday season. When guests questioned the new design, some say they were told that the mall was “simplifying” the design so that it would “not offend anyone.” The mall was scared that any unneeded Christmas cheer may cause mall-goers to feel uncomfortable so downsized the display to a white plastic “grotto” of sorts for Santa and white plastic seating. The mall claimed the appearance was meant to represent a glacier, but parents weren’t buying it. In fact, they told the mall they wouldn’t buy anything until the offensively bland display was removed.

Parents said the display had nothing to do with Christmas and looked like something from Star Trek, not a children’s Christmas display. One shopper said the set looked like “‘George Jetson’s pad” not a place for Santa. It appears that the masses agreed and the mall has reportedly removed all signs of the “offensive” white display. Instead, the mall says they are going to add back in some of the Christmas elements such a Christmas tree and a red throne for Santa. Though all remnants of the “Glacial experience,” as the mall was calling the dull display, has been removed, it seems that initially the mall had hoped to keep the futuristic design by simply adding additional Christmas elements.

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http://www.inquisitr.com/2551608/politic...ved-completely/ (emphasis added)

They understand dollars.

Quote: Cincinnatus wrote in post #5

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Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #4

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As someone else pointed out "freedom of religion" allows for others to NOT express religious thoughts and themes. Me personally, I don't much care for those types of organizations and tend to avoid them. So, they don't get my money. But, good grief, if they don't want to say "Merry Christmas", so what?

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As an isolated incident means not much of anything. I also agree if a business chooses not to acknowledge Christmas, they are free to do so, but it means I will choose not to acknowledge them with my money.

But, Sanguine, this is not an isolated event. It's a part of a growing pattern of businesses and government institutions refusing to recognize an important Christian holiday combined with the creeping and unwelcome secularization of our society. This not only represents a diminishment of our culture, but also an abandonment of our cultural and religious history. It's not by accident and it is not good.

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Makes me want to go out and start wishing everyone a Merry Christmas TODAY.