Produced by „Hit Entertainment“, the TV episode “Keeping up with James” based on Reveren Wilbert Audry´s books was stripped of every reference to Christmas. The Christmas season is called winter holidays, and the Christmas tree is named the holiday tree. On the DVD narrator Michael Angelis tells viewers: “You’ll always see a tree with decorations during the winter holidays.”
Hilary Fortnam, the daugther of Reverend Wilbert Audry, who was a priest of the Church of England and author of Thomas The Tank Engine books, expressed her disappointment in a letter sent to The Daily Telegraph: "[my father] would feel very strongly about this politically correct age and that those who now wrote his stories should not have taken Christ out of Christmas. He was a priest first and children's author second.“
Sources
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8816675/Christmas-removed-from-Thomas-the-Tank-Engine-to-be-politically-correct.html (opens in a new tab)
- http://www.christian.org.uk/news/christmas-derailed-on-thomas-the-tank-engine/ (opens in a new tab)
- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047294/I-dont-want-people-thinking-father-wrote-words-Thomas-creator-Rev-W-Awdrys-daughter-slams-PC-Christmas-episode.html?printingPage=true (opens in a new tab)
- http://www.theblaze.com/stories/thomas-the-tank-engine-cartoon-replaces-christmas-with-holiday/ (opens in a new tab)
- http://www.christian.org.uk/news/thomas-the-tank-engines-pc-christmas-branded-an-insult/ (opens in a new tab)