SAGINAW, Mich. -- Tightening budgets have forced Mt. Pleasant to take Christ out of their Christmas.

Festival Name Changed To Remove 'Christ'

The traditional Dickens Christmas Festival has been renamed the Dickens Holiday Festival so the city can advertise in local schools, WNEM-TV in Saginaw reported.

In order to get more bang for their buck from a thinning advertisement budget, the organization wants to put fliers in schools. For that to happen, the word "Christmas" had to be removed.

Downtown Development Coordinator Michelle Sponseller said many people are unhappy with the change.

"We changed the name this year for the schools because we wanted to advertise in the school brochures, and the schools have a list of words you can't use, like 'Santa,' 'Christmas' and 'Nativity'," Sponseller said. "So we did a brochure for the schools, and we took those words out."

Sponseller said they made a brochure for the public with the word "Christmas" still in it.

Downtown Development Board Member Kriss Roethleisberger said, "The spirit of the event has not changed. We have the live Nativity, the lighted Christmas parade, the community Christmas sing. It was simply that on one piece of marketing material we had to use the word 'holiday'."

The entire event is put on by volunteers and starts Friday and runs through the weekend.