Christmas Is...

I remember many years ago Rich’s Department Store advertising came out with the statement CHRISTMAS IS RICH’S* Or was it RICH’S IS CHRISTMAS?

Either way, it meant just about the same.

Jennie Tate Anderson** got up a campaign to end the slogan and I think she succeeded. Or, maybe it was too late to stop it for that year, but I don’t recall seeing the slogan the next Christmas season.

Now, it might be time to rethink the statement Rich’s is Christmas. Use Rich’s as a noun that describes wealthy people and not the department stores. And change ”is” to “get”. Now it might read something like “The Rich get Christmas.” That implies that the poor don’t, which is true.

I heard on the news lately that with this out of whack economy there is a bigger gap between the Have’s and Have Nots. The rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer.

It reminds me once I heard a person who grew up in a poor family saY he thought he and his siblings were bad and his well-off school mates were good because Santa left them presents at Christmas. And of course it was common knowledge that Santa left presents only to the good little boys and girls.



Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

*In a way, you can’t blame Rich’s for thinking they were Christmas, in the Atlanta area anyway. They started the Christmas season each year by the ceremoniously lighting of the famous Christmas tree that was always very tall and usually cut down in north Georgia. They documented the tree’s trip to Atlanta each year on the local news and interviewed the ones who owned it. Rich’s was two buildings on Forsyth Street. There was a multi-level bridge above Forsyth Street which connected the two Rich’s buildings. There were either four or five levels. During the famous lighting of the Christmas Tree every Thanksgiving night, different entertainers would sing or recite something from each level, at different times, of course. Then also, during the Christmas shopping season on top of one of the Rich’s buildings on Forsyth Street was the famous Pink Pig Railway. It was a little choo choo train with an engine that looked like a pink pig. Kids loved to go shopping with their parents to get to ride the Pink Pig.

The downtown Rich’s has been bulldozed away and Macy’s now owns the shopping centers Rich’s which now are, of course, Macy’s, and the Pink Pig is at one of them and so is the lighting of the Christmas Tree, but it just isn’t the same.

**Mrs. Anderson was very much a philanthropist locally. she and her husband helped the needy in Marietta in many ways. Once after I got out of the Navy I went to a presentation to save our landmarks in Cobb County. The speaker was Mrs. Anderson (I think she also ran the slide projector). Also, she was an office volunteer in the office at Marietta High School.