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December 4, 2007
Replacing Christmas Poll Results
(Filed under: Poll Results)
Last week we rekindled the age-old debate of keeping the "Christ" in "Christmas." I also collected data for my forthcoming book, "How To Write Awful Polls." Here's what you had to say:
82% of you are willing to put up your fists and fight for the word "Christmas." If a design idea came up that couldn't fit the whole word, "Christmas," then you would scrap it. No "Xmas" or "Holidays" for you.
9% of you would drop the "Christ" in favor of an "X." After all, it is a sideways cross, right?
A final 9% of you would go with the word "Holidays." You can kill two birds, Christmas and New Years, with one stone, and it's non-offensive. Plus it works better with your design.
This week, we want to know which church marketing mistake have you seen your church make most often?
Posted by Joshua Cody at December 4, 2007 2:24 PM
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Comments
I missed the initial poll thread... but I thought it was relatively common knowledge that the X in Xmas isn't simply a place-holder or "sideways cross", the origin is X is the first Greek letter in the Greek word for Christ. Seems like a dumb debate. X is directly representative of "Christ". Quit whining.
Posted by: brett maxwell at December 4, 2007 7:08 PM
I was just going to post a comment similar to Brett's but he is better spoken than I am....so alas, I am just going to ramble on about nothing.
Posted by: Derrick Henslee at December 4, 2007 8:41 PM
I agree with the first two comments --- I don't see any big deal with it. Of course, I'm the only one in my faith community who doesn't have a problem with Xmas, so I'd end up reworking the graphic anyway!
Posted by: Cameron at December 5, 2007 1:56 AM
It's the thought that counts right? Although it feels slightly warming to see that a good percentage wouldn't remove the Christ in Christmas for a graphic block. And holidays just sounds too impersonal, don't you think so?
Posted by: jen_chan, writer MemberSpeed.com at December 5, 2007 3:02 AM
I agree that xmas is technically no big deal since it means the same thing. But most people (christians included) probably don't know that. However, even most unchurched people know the etymology of Christmas. Its immediate name recognition folks, and therefore better marketing.
Posted by: mike hosey at December 6, 2007 7:11 PM
Did you ever want to write replace those XMAS abbreviations that people use with something that put the Christ back in Christmas? You can, by using a special character on your computer keyboard.
To make the character with a Mac you hold down the Option button while pressing the T key.
†
with Windows you use Alt + 0134 on the numeric keypad.
Merry †mas
Peter
Posted by: Peter Moulton at November 30, 2008 9:56 AM
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