If you had a job, we'd tell you where to buy your holiday gifts

These two stories are from the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Focus on the Family eliminating 202 jobs

BILL REED
THE GAZETTE

Because of a weak economy and cash-strapped donors, Focus on the Family said it is eliminating 202 jobs, the deepest cuts in the 32-year history of the Colorado Springs-based Christian nonprofit.

Focus expects this holiday season - normally the most lucrative time of the year for nonprofits - to be even more painful to the bottom line.

But for those who still have a job and will be buying holiday presents, the Dobson gang is going to tell you where to spend your money.

Focus puts retailers on a naughty and nice list for Christmas

MARK BARNA
THE GAZETTE

Focus on the Family wants shoppers to know which retailers are naughty and which ones are nice - at least when it comes to holiday lingo.

On Thursday the Colorado Springs-based ministry's political action arm launched its second-annual holiday campaign by posting an online shoppers guide with three categories: "Christmas-friendly" retailers, "Christmas-negligent" retailers and "Christmas-offensive" retailers.

The "friendly" retailers are so designated because they prominently use "Merry Christmas" and other Christmas-specific references in their catalogs and in-store promotions. Those on the Christmas-offensive list use secular phrases such as "happy holidays" and have "apparently abandoned" the use of the word "Christmas," Focus said. Christmas-negligent companies "marginalize" their message by using "Christmas" in some cases and "holidays" in others.

The Focus shopping guide is another weapon in the growing battle against what social conservatives several years ago labeled the "War on Christmas" - the notion that Christmas is being secularized, in part by retailers trying not to offend non-Christians by using terms like "holiday season," "winter season," "shopping season" and "holiday trees."

A group that considers the holiday season "the most lucrative time of the year" would, of course, assume that retailers define Christmas.

Some of the tactics have paid off.

In 2005, Sears, Kmart, Walmart and Target received threats of a boycott from Christian groups for their "holiday season" advertising. The companies soon adopted the Christmas-friendly language.