A simple idea by a Cincinnati couple to reaffirm the traditional meaning of Christmas and to "swing the pendulum back" from growing secularization of the religious holiday has grown into a national phenomenon in just 17 days.

Cincinnati Christian bookstore owner Jennifer Giroux told "Farah Live" listeners yesterday she and her husband were looking for some small way to "take back Christmas for the baby Jesus" in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. She particularly was frustrated when she would take one of her daughters, who is deaf, to the mall and would watch her eyes grow large at all the holiday displays and realize the little girl never saw anything that communicated the real meaning of Christmas.

Two days before Thanksgiving, Giroux and her husband came up with an idea for a wristband that said, "Just Say Merry Christmas" and ordered 5,000 of them, expecting to sell them through their bookstore and certain they would have inventory left over for next Christmas as well.

But that all changed following a WorldNetDaily story on the Christmas bracelets. The first week's slow, steady sales took off, climbing to 25,000 – plus 12,000 pre-orders – just 16 days after the idea was born.

Giroux credits WND with the campaign's meteoric start. "It was on WorldNetDaily before it was anywhere else," she says.

"We never dreamed we'd tap into this national frustration," Giroux says. "Our heads are spinning – there are so many bad things coming out in the news. People are saying, 'We're Americans. We just want to say Merry Christmas.'"

The bracelets are not a moneymaker for the Girouxs whose goal is to reclaim Christmas and its meaning. The wristbands are priced just above costs so churches and other groups can buy them for their members or even use them for fund-raising.

"We decided we had to step up to the plate if we were going to preserve Christmas for our children," says Giroux. We're humbled to be a small instrument to swing the pendulum back."

Order "Just say Merry Christmas" bracelets for your entire family – or arm Christian friends with the bracelets by ordering several to distribute at your church.

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Operation: Just Say ... Merry Christmas bracelet

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Avoid the crowds – finish shopping from home at WND's Christmas Store!

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