# Announcement at Lowe's: Someone in Corporate, Please Grow at Set!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [November 15, 2007, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476 "2007-11-15T02:44:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/1 "2007-11-15T02:44:08Z")
Yes, it’s that time of year when large companies tiptoe through the minefield they’ve built for themselves. Mustn’t offend anyone, regardless of how idiotic the aggrieved party’s offense taking might be.
The latest sampling is the [terrible, evil, and nasty term “Family Trees”](http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200711/CUL20071114b.html) expressed in Lowe’s catalogs. Baby Jesus on a Segway, already. This is bovine excrement of the highest order.
You wanna know who’s offended? Me! Any corporate entity who caves to that bully-boy fuckstick Donald Wildmon and his minions, the AFA, which apparently stand for Alliance of Fucksticks in America.
If you really wanna do something positive for Christianity and the Family, Donald, stop your posturing, your email campaigns, your hate, and emulate the fellow you claim to serve. You know, the one who hung out with prostitutes and other societal elements you consider so shamefully wrong.
To Lowe’s: shame on you. You should have told him to be a Christmas Angel and cram a family tree up his ass.
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### Author:  [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/2 "2007-11-15T02:49:36Z")
The delicious irony of this is, if it had been an atheist group that had pressured Lowe’s into calling them Family Trees instead of Christmas Trees, Wildmon and minions would have been all over it as an attack on Christianity and Christmas.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/3 "2007-11-15T02:54:34Z")
[QUOTE=EddyTeddyFreddy]
The delicious irony of this is, if it had been an atheist group that had pressured Lowe’s into calling them Family Trees instead of Christmas Trees, Wildmon and minions would have been all over it as an attack on Christianity and Christmas.
[/QUOTE]
No, that’s apparently just what happened. Lowe’s called them “family trees,” Wildmon’s goons flipped out, and Lowe’s rolled over and issued a big corporate apology.
I would like to see the story from a better site than “CyberCast News Services,” though.
---
### Author:  [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/4 "2007-11-15T02:56:38Z")
Christians are _offended_ by calling Christmas trees “family trees”? I could understand offense if it was some horrible term or something more central to the faith, but really, christmas trees? They’re not exactly belittling the faith, here.
And “family trees” anyway is stupid. What other holidays have trees like that? None as far as I know. There is a point at which you’re being inclusive and a point at which you’re delving into idiocy.
Is it wrong that my first reaction was to think up some genuinely blasphemous holiday items?
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### Author:  [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/5 "2007-11-15T03:05:15Z")
[QUOTE=Miller]
No, that’s apparently just what happened. Lowe’s called them “family trees,” Wildmon’s goons flipped out, and Lowe’s rolled over and issued a big corporate apology.
I would like to see the story from a better site than “CyberCast News Services,” though.
[/QUOTE]
Here ya go, right from the steaming pile of Assfuckers Anonymous:
[http://www.afa.net/Petitions/Issuedetail.asp?id=276](http://www.afa.net/Petitions/Issuedetail.asp?id=276)
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### Author:  [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/6 "2007-11-15T03:16:09Z")
:smack:
That’s what I get for assuming I understand the story from the OP alone and not bothering to click on the link.
_slinks away_
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/7 "2007-11-15T03:30:31Z")
[QUOTE=danceswithcats]
Here ya go, right from the steaming pile of Assfuckers Anonymous:
[http://www.afa.net/Petitions/Issuedetail.asp?id=276](http://www.afa.net/Petitions/Issuedetail.asp?id=276)
[/QUOTE]
Heh. I don’t know that I’d consider the AFA to be a _better_ cite, but thanks anyway.
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### Author:  [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/8 "2007-11-15T04:28:28Z")
I think calling Christmas trees “family trees” is the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long time. A Christmas tree is a green thing you put in your living room and decorate, a family tree is a diagram of your relatives.
I don’t see it as Lowe’s caving to Christian fundamentalists, I see it as Lowe’s recognizing that they were trying to fuck with the English language and realized they shouldn’t.
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### Author:  [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/9 "2007-11-15T04:28:40Z")
It all makes so much sense considering how much pine trees actually have to do with the religious aspect of Christmas.
Ah, mystery religions. What else would we fight over without you?
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/10 "2007-11-15T04:57:23Z")
[QUOTE=Hung Mung]
It all makes so much sense considering how much pine trees actually have to do with the religious aspect of Christmas.
Ah, mystery religions. What else would we fight over without you?
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but at least you get to carol it in with Sir Walter Scott’s original lyrics:
> [@](#):
>
> Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances!
> Honored and blessed be the ever-green Pine!
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### Author:  [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/11 "2007-11-15T05:10:00Z")
[QUOTE=Ravenman]
I think calling Christmas trees “family trees” is the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long time.
[/QUOTE]
I’m a huge old atheist who thinks people who get hysterical over the use of phrases like “happy holidays” ought to be kicked in the yule log, and I agree 100%.
It’s one thing to strive to be inclusive when dealing with a variety of faiths or lack thereof. It’s another thing to be completely retarded. This is the second one.
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### Author:  [@Long\_Time\_First\_Time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Long_Time_First_Time)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/12 "2007-11-15T05:17:28Z")
Lowes should be pitted for running the worst Christmas ad - EVER.
This is the one were a lady goes to Lowes to get all her Christmas necessities. These are things she really, really needs mind you. She’s so excited/amnesic/brain dead that she can’t form into words the names of the items on her list. So she plays charades with the friendly Lowes employee to get her point across. Two of her most pressing needs? Stuff she RAN RIGHT OUT TO BUY and is practically beside her self with excitement at the prospect of getting them -
An inflatable snow globe she can put on her lawn and a animated turkey in a Santa costume that dances and makes noise.
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### Author:  [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/13 "2007-11-15T05:18:46Z")
[QUOTE=Ravenman]
I think calling Christmas trees “family trees” is the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long time. A Christmas tree is a green thing you put in your living room and decorate, a family tree is a diagram of your relatives.
I don’t see it as Lowe’s caving to Christian fundamentalists, I see it as Lowe’s recognizing that they were trying to fuck with the English language and realized they shouldn’t.
[/QUOTE]
The problem with your argument is that a charge of linguaphiles carrying the sacred OED wasn’t launched against Lowe’s, led by the likes of Michael Quinion.
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### Author:  [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/14 "2007-11-15T05:42:56Z")
I find myself totally unable to care _what_ whoever calls the whatsis. “Oh god, don’t say _Christmas_, you’ll offend someone!”, “Dammit! They’re taking _Christ_ out of the solstice!”… Blah blah blah. Shut the fuck up and let me buy a goddamned XBox you vacuous whore.
I’m not calling anyone in this thread a whore, that was for the idiots at Target ranting to the cashier.
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### Author:  [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/15 "2007-11-15T05:44:12Z")
Well, really, shouldn’t they be calling the things “idol-worshipping heathen devil-trees”?
\*"For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not."\* – Jeremiah 10:3-4
😛
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### Author:  [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/16 "2007-11-15T06:08:19Z")
My solution: call them “tannenbaums”. The term is used to refer to a tree in a Christmas carol, and it’s a common Ashkenazi Jewish family name as well. Problem solved!
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### Author:  [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/17 "2007-11-15T06:39:47Z")
One thing we haven’t touched on here is the word “family”
I realized the people at Lowe’s were idiots when the pimple faced blue vested stock jockey didn’t even know what rebar _was_, but this is ridiculous. It can’t be a “family” tree unless my great aunts and uncles are on it. And I really don’t want that pimple faced stock jockey to go dig 'em up and hang them on a six foot Norfolk Pine.
“Family” tree is just stupid.
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### Author:  [@Li\_l\_Pluck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Li_l_Pluck)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/18 "2007-11-15T06:42:08Z")
[QUOTE=Giraffe]
[QUOTE=Ravenman]
I think calling Christmas trees “family trees” is the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long time.
[/QUOTE]
I’m a huge old atheist who thinks people who get hysterical over the use of phrases like “happy holidays” ought to be kicked in the yule log, and I agree 100%.
It’s one thing to strive to be inclusive when dealing with a variety of faiths or lack thereof. It’s another thing to be completely retarded. This is the second one.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, my thoughts exactly.
I mean, really, as much as the sun shines just a little bit brighter for me whenever fundie cuntstains are made to get their panties in a twist, Lowe’s was stupid to call a Christmas tree \*in it’s holiday catalog \* by any other name. (And please, Og, not Channukah bush, either!) I mean, “family tree”? They couldn’t do any better than that? Breakdown in their creative process, indeed.
However, I \*do \* believe that fixing this mix-up makes it appear that Lowe’s has caved to the fundies (albeit for the “right” reasons this time), though that doesn’t seem (to me) to be the spin (from the spokesperson’s remarks) that Lowe’s is trying to put on it.
Oh, and kudos to **MEBuckner**! 😉
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### Author:  [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/19 "2007-11-15T06:59:57Z")
I thought “Holiday” tree had become the de facto offical weasel-word to avoid saying that the trees you were selling were actually for, you know, Christmas. :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Charger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charger)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2007, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/announcement-at-lowes-someone-in-corporate-please-grow-at-set/426476/20 "2007-11-15T07:32:19Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Christians are _offended_ by calling Christmas trees “family trees”? I could understand offense if it was some horrible term or something more central to the faith, but really, christmas trees? They’re not exactly belittling the faith, here.
[/QUOTE]
It’s more about being offended that one’s faith is deemed offensive. The word “Christmas” is being treated like a vulgarity, thereby implying that Christianity is vulgar.
People hold their faith close to their hearts. Actively avoiding the word “Christ” would be the equivalent of referring to someone’s wife, Nancy, as “The N-Word.”
Did the catalog have any “Family Menorahs”?
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