Christians win the war on Christmas

Another email from the AFA on Gap's war on Christmas. Gap has given in a is airing a commercial with the words 'Merry Christmas' in it. That way we know that Christmas is all about spiritual matters and not just another random materialistic holiday. They say.

According to Bill Chandler, vice-president of Gap corporate communications, Gap's Old Navy division will launch a new television commercial this weekend which "has a very strong Christmas theme."

Chandler responded to AFA last Friday, after a poll showed 90% of AFA supporters wanted to continue the boycott as a result of Gap's initial "holiday" ad that mingled Christmas with the pagan "Winter Solstice" holiday [which was celebrated many years before Christ was born, but no, no, no, we mustn't acknowledge that, because this is a CHRISTIAN country, and pagans use witchcraft (which is very real and very dangerous)].

Gap says the new ad will include the popular Supermodelquins proudly cheering “Merry Christmas", and features Christmas trees [I can't recall the book and chapter of the Bible where the Christmas tree is mentioned...], lights and ornaments as well.

In good faith, AFA is suspending the Gap boycott until it has an opportunity to view the new commercial this weekend.

As a result of your dedicated actions, we believe Gap is beginning to realize that Christmas is not just another “holiday” and will begin to advertise in a way that is respectful to Christians and Christmas shoppers.

Here is the last call to stand with us and proclaim to our communities that Christmas is not just a winter holiday focused on materialism, but a “holy day” when we celebrate the birth of our Savior [who was not born around that time at all, by the way]. We can do it in a gentle and effective way by wearing the “God's Gift - Merry Christmas” button. Don’t wait! Place your order by December 1 to receive it before Christmas. [Emphasis and my comments in red added for a nice Christmassy effect.]

Here's a question: Do you know why Santa Clause is dressed in red and white?

Answer in the comments....

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Update 11/25:
Thanks to Mitch, I now present the true story of Santa:

Origins: Among the pantheon of characters commonly associated with the Christmas season (both the religious holiday and the secular wintertime celebrations), the beloved persona of Santa Claus is somewhat distinctive in that his appearance is neither one that has been solidified through centuries of religious tradition nor one that sprang fully-formed from the imagination of a modern-day writer or artist. Santa Claus is instead a hybrid, a character descended from a religious figure (St. Nicholas) whose physical appearance and backstory were created and shaped by many different hands over the course of years until he finally coalesced into the now familiar (secular) character of a jolly, rotund, red-and-white garbed father figure who oversees a North Pole workshop manned by elves and travels in a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer to deliver toys to children all around the world every Christmas Eve. (Among the many persons who had a hand in creating the modern Santa Claus figure, some of the most influential were writers Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore, historian John Pintard, and illustrator Thomas Nast.)

There is clear evidence that Coca-Cola did not invent the present image of Santa, and there is also a good reason why this is a myth:

However, we as human beings prefer definitive answers: We want details about time, place, and source and tend to eschew ambiguous, indefinite, open-ended explanations. We don't find satisfying the notion that Santa Claus is an evolutionary figure with no single, identifiable point of origin, so we instead have created and clung to a more satisfying, pat explanation: The modern appearance of Santa Claus was a commercial creation of the Coca-Cola company, who cannily promoted a version of Santa garbed in their red-and-white corporate colors.

Sound familiar? People don't like explanations they don't understand, and evolutionary mechanisms are hard to understand. Many people like instant creation better, and perhaps this is not only so because it says so in the Bible (or does it?).

The question remains what the AFA thinks of Santa, and if they don't think he is Satan misspelled, then how do they explain him without any secular references?