I am so upset by this issue… but for different reasons than you may think.

I have a very good friend who works for the call center for Mrs. Fields Cookies. She called me in tears because she knows I’m an activist and track with these issues.

Here are the facts:
* Mrs. Fields website (until yesterday) did not have any Christmas cookies for sale.
* The reason the Xmas cookies were not for sale: because its October! and they don’t go on sale until November 1st.
* The lady who called Mrs. Fields was looking for a fight, very rude and misunderstood the facts.
* AFA, bless their hearts, had a knee-jerk reaction sent out an alert to their millions of subscribers indicating that Mrs. Fields was banning Christmas.

Now, my friend is having to deal with hundreds of phone calls from upset people reacting in a very un-Christian way.

The AFA does so much good… but this was a real black eye. I hope they have the good sense to retract this.

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[...] Mrs. Fields Says "Bah, Humbug" to Christmas. • 10.12.07 [...]

Jumped the gun is right!
I work for a franchisee of Mrs. Fields’ Famous Brands (the parent company of Mrs. Field’s Cookies.) Our franchisee operates Great American Cookies stores, (Mrs. Field’s operates 3 brands-Mrs. Fields, Great American, and Original Cookie Co.) I have worked for the company for over 17 years, and we have featured the word “Christmas” prominently year after year in our in store marketing materials, cookie cakes shown in the our showcases, on the websites, as well as Christmas designs for our cakes in the brochures which we pass out to customers inquiring about our products. The following letter was sent out to all franchisees regarding this incident:
This week, a woman from Michigan called the Mrs. Fields customer service line to inquire about Christmas gifts from Mrs. Fields Cookies. She was incorrectly told that Mrs. Fields will not be selling or promoting Christmas specific items this year, and instead would be focusing on Holiday items as to not offend anyone. Once hearing this, she quickly spread this false information. This miscommunication by the employee has been addressed, and we’ve been assured by the head of the customer service center that this error in communication will not occur again.

As we have for the last 30 years, Mrs. Fields strives to provide only the best indulgent treats and gifts for all of our customers’ needs. We will continue to do this during the upcoming holiday season by offering a wide variety of holiday items including Christmas specific gifts and treats.

Additionally, we are taking some internal steps to insure that the 2007 Holiday selling season is one of our best!

· We are creating a standard outgoing email for all customers who inquired about the Mrs. Fields Christmas gifts alerting them to the initial miscommunication and getting them excited for the November 1st launch of our holiday season.

· We have posted a note on Mrsfields.com previewing the 2007 Holiday product line including Christmas items

· We have sent a note onto the original organization who spread the information with our apologies of the miscommunication and they are helping us to broadcast that it was a miscommunication.

As you know, Mrs. Fields is celebrating their 30th anniversary this year, and is looking forward to a successful holiday season. Again, based on our original marketing plan, we will formally introduce the 2007 holiday selling season both in-store and online in early November 2007.

As usual, everyone needs to take big step back and not get so bent out of shape. The biggest problem in America is not that retailers don’t keep Christ in Christmas—it’s that Christians don’t keep Christ at the forefront of their actions.

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