Some Thoughts on Macy's and Other Stores

Knowing that Macys and other retailers reap billions a year in Christmas sales, it seems hypocritical when they rarely mention the holiday. It's a well known fact that Christmas sales means life or death to many of them. These stores can do better than this for the shopping public who has contributed to the building of their empire in the course of Christmas shopping for so many decades. Macys seems to think it can pull the Christmas building block out from the foundation of the season without anyone caring. In the 1947 movie "Miracle on 42nd Street", Macys is the darling of Christmas, with it's story about the department store Santa, the cynical mother and the girl who turns into a believer. The movie was remade in 1994. These aren't real life endorsements by Macys, but it's hard to imagine that these two versions of the Christmas story haven't helped immensely to engender warm and fuzzy feelings about shopping there in December. Macys' slogan switch from "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays" attracted much media attention and was a big blow for Christmas. Other stores followed the giant's example, citing it as a sort of ban, expanding holidayization to even more ridiculous proportions. When I saw "After Holiday Sale" signs going up outside Barnes and Noble Book stores the day after Christmas, I asked the manager why the signs didn't say "After Christmas Sale", which would have been the more natural, calendar -specific wording. He answered that he thought it was due to the news about Macys' switch. If Macys has officially changed their well-wishing slogan from "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays", they need to make some acknowledgment of Christmas in a prominent place elsewhere in the store.This is reasonable. Macys needs to take responsibility for the influence it exerts over other retailers and set examples showing Christmas is being recognized.

In the Macys 2002 Thanksgiving Day Parade, one of the floats was a giant sculpture on wheels depicting bears with colorfully wrapped gifts and a decorated tree. The TV announcer said it was titled "The Three Bears on Holiday Morning". They could have portrayed some other December holiday, since there is supposed to be such an array of them, but ,of course they chose Christmas, the one everyone wants to see, even if given a generic name.

Last year, 2005, I didn't see all of the Macys' Thanksgiving parade on television but I noticed three Christmas songs were sung by The Beach Boys, Cheetah Girls, and the Polar Express song was sung, most or all of them mentioning it by name. I saw no floats with obvious Christmas decorations called "Holiday floats". Most remarkable was how the NBC program ended with a big "Merry Christmas" sign that appeared above a "Happy Holidays" sign of equal size at the conclusion. This would seem to be the solution to Macys' language problems.The announcer commented that the "crowning moment of the parade" was the arrival of "Saint Nick."
In Holiday Lane this year, a part of the store that features probably 99% Christmas merchandise, and which was very crowded the day after Thanksgiving, I heard pop tunes that mentioned Christmas by name.

Last year, 2005, Macys on Union Square in San Francisco, seemed to take a more gracious approach regarding Christmas. This is undoubtedly the result of objections raised by customers and of media coverage of the store's treatment of Christmas. There was little or no reference to Christmas in the window displays, but there was an ad in the newspaper about Macys' "gift to San Francisco", an 80 foot tall California white fir, with the slogan "Rock Around the Christmas Tree". The slogan was accompanied by a photo of Union Square at Christmas time. Technically Macys was not calling it's gift to San francisco a "Christmas Tree". It was called a "California white fir tree" everywhere except in the newspaper slogan (which is a song title) including on the signs at the base of the tree in Union Square. However the effect in the newspaper was the same as if they had called it a "Christmas Tree." This news of improvement should be cited as examples for other stores and televisions stations to follow. We should also encourage continued Christmas references by writing letters of commendation.

Newspapers won't print anything that so much as hints of admonition about their high paying customers, like Macys. I found this out first hand when I submitted an ad to the San Francisco Chronicle for this web site. The ad simply asked "How does Macys treat Christmas?" which was too sensitive an area to go into.This is all the more reason for having a forum for reporting news about Christmas in the commercial arena that's not under the influence of big business.

Any store playing language steering tricks should start receiving wake up calls that we won't patronize them if they continue. Any store that shows improvement in this area should likewise be shown appreciation when we notice the change. See "Action Alerts".