November 5, 2013
The good people of Hallmark are in deep water over a Christmas ornament that just went on sale.
They’ve changed the old lyric “Don we now our gay apparel” to “”Don we now our FUN apparel!” (Insert your own Fa la la’s.) Gay groups are calling this homophobic. So let’s take a look at the sweater with the correct wording.
You see the problem. That ornament will open Hallmark for some obvious mocking: “That really is gay!” being the least crude. That ornament would open Hallmark up to all kinds of uncalled for (and homophobic) gay innuendo and insults and Hallmark, being a family friendly brand, wants nothing to do with that. So they replaced GAY with FUN and opened the whole can of worms themselves.
Personally, I say they should have avoided the whole issue by not making such a flamboyant and ridiculous ornament. “Don we now our gay apparel” is a time-honored phrase and is of course a legitimate object for a Christmas ornament.
But do it with some dignity, huh Hallmark?
Jeez, that is one ugly sweater.
Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride 
Not to mention the fact that “merry” would have sounded much better and Christmas-like and would have been closer to the original sense (I believe). And does anybody really wear that thing? Who are their clients, 70’s hippies on LSD? o__O
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It is actually a small tree ornament, not a full size sweater, but the reasoning remains the same.
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That makes me feel better, I thought some poor kid was actually going to be forced to wear it…
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This is on a par with the people who think we ought to say ” Happy Holidays ” instead of ” Merry Christmas “, lest someone be offended or have their sensitive feelings hurt.
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I think that, in general, people have become too thin-skinned and somehow believe that they have a right to not be offended. Sorry, the world is not here to massage your feelings. If Merry Christmas offends you, your problems run a lot deeper than the holiday season.
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I’ve always said both ” Merry Christmas ” & ” Happy Holidays “, no one has shown any sign of bruised feelings yet. Hey, not even Ben Stein takes offense at being wished a Merry Christmas.
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I have no problem either. It is a nice expression of best wishes, and what is wrong with that?
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My only problem w / Christmas is that ’tis the season to over – indulge, then start a diet after the New Year’s hangover goes away.
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Tell me about it.
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I love stories like this! I like to imagine how big the committee was that sat around coming up with the ill-advised decision to do what they did. The phenomenon is not new–here’s a similar story from down under a few years ago:
http://testazyk.com/2010/09/14/it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time/
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I still remember when, many years ago, when aids started to become a reality, somebody created a very effective TV commercial to make sure kids used condoms. It portrait a very scary Death who was playing bowling with people as pins, the message was not to run useless risks. It was awesome, you couldn’t ignore it. They (whoever the morons were) succeeded in having it removed because it was scary. Yes, dammit, it’s scary because aids is scary, what else should it be??? It’s trying to save your kids lives! But apparently it’s not OK for their oh-so-sensitive kids to be scared and save their lives, while it’s perfectly fine for them to die of aids…
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Wow, that illogic of that stuns me.
Here in NYC, the health department is running very graphic ads showing the physical effects of smoking- people without a trachea, missing digits, etc, and the same thing- too scary, get them off. They are meant to be scary!
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