Link: WorldNetDaily: Wal-Mart faces boycott for ‘banning’ Christmas.

Okay, this is for all the Wal-Mart devotees out there.  Not that we can claim to be much better.  We shop mostly at Target.  Yeah, the same Target that prohibits Salvation Army bell ringers at their stores during Christmas.  Pick your poison.

Anyway, I love this part of the story:

According to the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights,
the controversy was sparked when a woman recently complained to
Wal-Mart that the store was replacing its "Merry Christmas" greeting
with "Happy Holidays."

The League says the woman received an e-mail response from a customer-service representative, reading exactly as follows:

Walmart
is a world wide organization and must remain conscious of this. The
majority of the world still has different practices other than
"christmas" which is an ancient tradition that has its roots in
Siberian shamanism. The colors associated with "christmas" red and
white are actually a representation of of the aminita mascera mushroom.
Santa is also borrowed from the Caucuses, mistletoe from the Celts,
yule log from the Goths, the time from the Visigoth and the tree from
the worship of Baal. It is a wide wide world.

Catholic
League president Bill Donohue speculated the writer of that e-mail was
perhaps drunk, so he sent the response to Dan Fogelman in Wal-Mart’s
public-relations department.

Now that is classic!  He "…speculated the writer of that e-mail was perhaps drunk…"  Beautiful!  So much for the old Wal-Mart of Sam Walton.

Jonathan

UPDATE:

Seems that Wal-Mart took the complaints seriously!  See here (link: Wal-Mart Boycott Ends with Apology).  Interestingly quick and succinct response from Wal-Mart.