“Dear Santa this year please give me a big fat bank account and a slim body. Please don’t mix those two up like you did last year. Thanks.”
Those are the words on a decorative holiday sign that a Florida mom recently found in the girls’ department of a West Palm Beach-area Dillard’s — a wish for a “slim body” and “fat bank account.”
And as these things tend to do, a picture of the sign made the rounds on Twitter —
— and got some pretty outraged responses from people who called it “body shaming” of young girls.
"It makes me think that I should be very very focused on how I look and I should want to be thinner than I am and have more money than I do."
In a tweet, Dillard’s apologized, saying the company has removed the sign — which it says was not placed in the girls’ department by an employee.
No explanation as to how it did get there — or whether that means it was supposed to be placed somewhere else. In any case — it’s gone now.
Though not before Dillard’s endured a round of bad press.
But it’s hard to say what the lasting impact will be on Dillard’s as a whole. We did see a couple people on Twitter say they won’t shop at the chain over the incident. But in recent years the company has done well in holiday sales compared to its department store competitors.
