Tesco withdraws ho-ho-horrible ginger Xmas card

Tue Dec 15, 2009 8:48am GMT

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LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's biggest retailer Tesco apologised on Tuesday after complaints that a Christmas card it sold was offensive to people with ginger hair.

The card in question shows a child with red hair sitting on the lap of Santa Claus under the banner: "Santa loves all kids. Even ginger ones."

Davinia Phillips, whose three children all have red hair, was enraged when she saw the card at one of Tesco's stores in northern England.

"It's discrimination, pure and simple. I have shown it to a lot of friends and they are all disgusted by it," she was quoted by newspapers as saying.

"I just don't find it funny at all. If it had been about a black child or an overweight child the store would have been shut down by now."

Tesco said the offending card had now been withdrawn from all its stores.

"It is never our intention to offend any customer and we are sorry if this card caused any upset," a spokeswoman said.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Steve Addison)

<p>A man carries a carrier bag as he leaves a Tesco supermarket in London October 5, 2009. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor</p>

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