Smokey, Meet Santa
I received an email a couple of days ago. The message in this disturbing missive: “Only YOU can save Christmas!”
Dammit. It was bad enough when only I could prevent forest fires.
The email comes courtesy of an outfit calling itself Heading to Heaven. They’ve nicked a page out of the Bill O’Reilly playbook and decided that Christmas is under attack by secularists, or progressives, or JC Penney or someone. And how do you save Christmas? By spending a buck ninety-eight on a cheap pin that says, “Keeping Christ in Christmas.” This is a rare opportunity since, according to their website, “Unfortunately, we only ordered a limited print of 1 million buttons.” So, only a million buttons at $1.98 a pop. Only two million bucks. They apparently asked themselves, “WWJD?” and come back with the answer that Jesus would’ve turned the situation into an opportunity for monetary gain, camels and needles’ eyes be damned.
Where’s the money going? Well, someone’s pocket from the looks of it. The company’s website boasts of its efforts in the community, but when you dig deeper for specifics, you find out that these “community” efforts consist largely of the company’s affiliate program, whereby they’ll donate up to ten percent of proceeds to affiliates, provided those affiliates shill for Headed to Heaven. This isn’t altruism, in other words, so much as good old-fashioned American hucksterism, buffed to a high gloss with a dollop of Jesus. Think of it as Amway with a few Bible verses thrown in.
Of course, the problem runs deeper than Headed to Heaven, and really, they’re only a symptom of the problem moreso than the problem itself. If we’re really so concerned about “saving” Christmas, why are we starting out by buying more shit? Isn’t that what got us into this mess in the first place? When I was knee-high to a grasshopper (longer ago than I’d care to admit, but not quite that long), you wouldn’t start seeing all the trappings of Christmas — the lights, the nativity scenes with oddly misshapen Jesuses, 43 billion christmas tchochkes in the stores, the Toys R Us catalog, and ubiquitous Christmas music) ’til Black Friday. The stuff shows up earlier and earlier now, to the point where this year, I was seeing Christmas crap before labor day. Heading to Heaven’s message? Jesus wants you to buy more shit! Not just any shit, mind you, their shit.
So if you’re that concerned about Christmas, here’s an immodest proposal. Instead of getting yourself in a lather over someone saying “Happy Holidays,” try writing to the corporate offices of your local retailer when they’re putting out candy canes on Independence Day. Email Wal-Mart and tell them to let their employees spend some time with their families one day out of the year instead of turning retail into bloodsport. And if they don’t listen (and they won’t; the only thing that talks, in retail as in so much else, is cash), don’t give them your business, whether it’s a national chain, or a self-proclaimed “Christian” company preying on the lowest-common-denominator populist fears of the easily frightened.
I tried to reach Heading to Heaven for something, anything, they might say in their own defense, or at least to give an accounting of what in the hell they were going to do with the two million bucks they’re counting on their pins generating for them. They’ve been silent, and no doubt will continue to be. So I’ll let their advert do the talking: “Every Christian can quietly speak through the simple act of wearing this button.”
Where’s the sport in that? If you want to “save” Christmas, start by driving out the money-changers.
Tags: Christmas, Heading To Heaven, Keep Christ in Christmas, profiteering
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
I cannot express to you how much I enjoyed this post.
December 15th, 2009 at 10:00 am
I happen to know these people. They are all Christians and are upset that Christmas trees are now being called the ‘great trees’ in their town. All though the advertising firm may have been extreme, they actually give them away free. They have donated hundreds to local churches and anyone that wants one they will send them out to at no cost. There are numerous emails that were sent out. This is the only one that was sent that required payment. The advertising firm felt that some people would not see value in something that did not have a cost. All the other emails offered the buttons at no cost and were shipped all over the company at the companies expense. This company has not and will not make any money on these buttons. You rant about the email but what about the values of this country. Again, you have exemplified the reason that the principals of this company are so upset. Attacking Christians is easy. In our society today it is not so easy to simply say ‘Merry Christmas’. To that end I say to you and yours ‘Merry Christmas’. For a free button click here: https://www.headingtoheaven.com/site/freebutton/default.php?src=asd
December 15th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Josh’s Mom: As of the time I wrote this post, it wasn’t just the advertising firm, but also HTH’s website, that was advertising the buttons at $1.98 apiece. And it’s hardly the only email I’ve received from the company (or on its behalf); the others also listed the same asking price.
But to address what is, I think, your more salient point: This post is not an attack on Christians, and I’m not sure quite how/why you’d read it in quite that way. My issue’s not with Christianity, but with the fact that it, like Christmas itself, has become a commodity; my point is that when you (not you, specifically, moreso a generic “you”) commercialize “saving” Christmas, you’ve missed the point as surely as someone thinking that picking up a few last-minute doodads at Wal-Mart is somehow honoring Jesus. To compound the irony, you’ve fed into precisely the same mentality you’re railing against. The point isn’t what’s on your sleeve, but on your heart.
With all that said, thank you for visiting, and for commenting. I wish you and your family a merry Christmas, as well.
December 16th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
No truer words have EVER been spoken!! I agreed with everything that you wrote!!
December 16th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
My brother from another mother! Thanks for stopping by!