The Grinch and Sunflowers in December

There is no reason for the posting of this picture of the sunflowers I grew one summer other than that they provide a wonderful contrast to the Grinch.  Sunflowers are such happy flowers, don't you think?

This morning while I was relaxing with the newspaper and a cup of coffee, I came across an article in today's The Oklahoman.  I didn't stay relaxed very long.  The headline read "Dallas church's site reports 'Grinches'." The article is by Sam Hodges of The Dallas Morning News. There is a web site developed by the First Baptist Church of Dallas where people can "report" businesses who don't greet them with "Merry Christmas."  I visited the site just to see what people were saying.  For some reason, I was reminded of my grade school days and tattling.

Businesses are commercial.  Christmas is a celebration of a religious event.  Gift giving is something that has grown by leaps and bounds as the years have passed.  The spirituality of the event is long gone and requiring our business owners to greet us with "Merry Christmas" or we won't give them any of our green stuff will not bring that spirituality back. Christmas is a commercial event.  Some businesses make upwards of 70 per cent of their total yearly profits at this time of year.

To penalize a business because they don't greet a shopper with "Merry Christmas" is ridiculous.  The Grinch web site doesn't even like "Happy Holidays" as a greeting even though the word holiday is a combination of the words "holy" and "day."  The word "holiday" is Middle English derived from the Old English word haligdaeg. (Source for my reference.)


One complainant on the web site mentioned that she hadn't been able to find any gift bags with the manger scene printed on the gift bags.  Huh???


And as William Lawrence, dean of the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University pointed out in the article, "The appropriate thing for Christians to do at this time of year is to find new and more effective ways to extend the love and peace of the season to others, not to insist that such enterprises as commercial businesses put  up Christmas trees."


Poor Dr. Seuss.  I'm sure he never imagined his beloved Grinch being used in such a manner.  But then, I guess the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas is enjoying all the publicity.