There are many changes in America and the right to practice the freedom of religion is under scrutiny nearly everywhere you turn today. Schools are not allowed to have prayer in school, mention the God or the Bible or offer a moment of silence for prayer during any type of emergency situations. In the general population, there are arguments that ?God? should be taken out of the ?Pledge of Allegiance?, off of the dollar bill and removed from other historical documents. A new question is whether a business Christmas card is a violation or intrusion upon the religion of another. If so must the professional holiday greeting by businesses now become simple ?best wishes? and watered down version of winter greetings in order to please the majority of the crowd at least part of the time? The pro and con opinions of this matter are strongly felt and supported on both sides. So the question remains, should a business send out Christmas cards and risk appearing inappropriate by one side or the other.



Let's face it; it isn't safe to offend customers, as they will find another retail outlet to fill their needs and your business will suffer the loss. But where does the retail office draw the line, support their personal belief structures, and support the concepts of the company while still being true to their personal values. This is an important issue that continues to grow in its controversial status as many different ideas; beliefs and arguments grow around this issue.

For The Business Owner, Playing It Safe Is Sometimes The Best Angle

Not only are Christmas cards a tradition, but sending a business Christmas card lets your clients and/or customers know that they are important to you. And that's important in terms of furthering a relationship.

- However, as furthering a relationship is the goal, you don't want to endanger that relationship by offending the recipient of your business Christmas card. Here are the ins and outs of choosing and sending business Christmas cards to help you avoid embarrassing Christmas card gaffes.

- Send only business Christmas cards of high quality. Quality shows and the quality of the Christmas card reflects on the sender. Sending cheap Christmas cards will make you look cheap.

- You should only send handmade Christmas cards if you are an artist. For the rest , sending handmade business Christmas cards only makes us look inept or too cheap to buy Christmas cards.

- Be aware of your clients? religious beliefs. Not everyone celebrates Christmas. If you know that a client or customer has different religious beliefs, choose and send a holiday card appropriate to the client's beliefs.

For many business owners, the idea of playing it safe with their customers is a much better idea than taking an unnecessary risk in exposing personal values. While it isn't always easy to ignore the personal values, it is often best to remember that personal and professional lives do not have to be in alignment 100% of the time, while it is ideal if they can be, it isn't always possible. For the business owner that wants to send Christmas cards but isn't comfortable sending religious based Christmas greetings to each customer, there are now delicately worded holiday greeting cards that serve the same function as a business Christmas card but leave all reference to a religious belief out of the greeting.

This is quite possibly the best solution available to the business owner that wants to please as many of the individual customers as possible while not offending any as well. It is not always easy to make the correct choice but in a situation such as whether or not to send business Christmas cards, it is generally a better idea to send a holiday greeting rather than recognize one religion over another.