Halloween is over now, and in Canada that means only one thing: CHRISTMAS! Christmas for two goddamn months! Hope you like hearing nothing but Mariah Carey for the next eight weeks!
And with the holiday season comes the inevitable batch of Christmas-related news stories, so here’s your first for the year: Hallmark, the greeting card company, has come under fire for censoring the word “gay” on one of its Christmas ornaments.
According to the Toronto Star, Hallmark recently released a new ornament, a Christmas sweater with the words “Don we now our fun apparel!” Basically, it’s that one line from “Deck the Halls” with the word gay replaced with “fun.”
[Screengrab courtesy of Hallmark]
Hallmark has since come under fire for the decision, and the company has apologized publicly on Twitter, saying, “We’ve been surprised at the wide range of reactions expressed about the change of lyrics on this ornament, and we’re sorry to have caused so much concern [. . .] We never intend to offend or make political statements with our products, and in hindsight we realize we shouldn’t have changed the lyrics on the ornament.”
Now in all fairness, Christmas sweaters are pretty gay, and there’s nothing wrong with that. They’re comfy, warm and super gay. Kinda the trifecta of perfect clothing. I think we can all agree they should have left the line as it was, because there’s really nothing wrong with donning some gay apparel.
But I also don’t think what they did was intended to hurt or offend. If anything, they went out of their way to be as inoffensive as possible, and it backfired. It’s unfortunate, but it happens, and I think the mistake was more stupid than it was malevolant. So don ye now your gay apparel. We do have excellent taste in clothing after all.
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