Walmart Canada removed several pieces of Christmas clothing from their online site after customers took offense to a line of 'adult-themed' sweaters. The sweaters depicted Santa doing various activities including drugs. Walmart has since issued an apology.
The products which were sold by a third party called FUN Wear featured Santa Claus sitting in front of three white lines which appeared to be cocaine. The tagline of the sweater read "LET IT SNOW" with a description that explained to the customers what the sweater meant.
"We all know how snow works. It's white, powdery and the best snow comes straight from South America. That's bad news for jolly old St. Nick, who lives far away in the North Pole. That's why Santa really likes to savor the moment when he gets his hands on some quality, grade A, Colombian snow."
Walmart explained that the clothes were from a third party and didn't represent the value of the company or will have any place on the website. They continued to apologize for any unintended offense it might have caused. Several shoppers took to social media to talk about the design. Several non-family friendly designs were taken down by Walmart after the social media caught on and the media started to reach out to Walmart.
According to Canada's Global News, one design depicted Mr. and Mrs. Claus in a compromising position. One design was Santa standing atop a fireplace bare bottom, which was captioned "roasting his chestnuts". The one with the Christmas couple was captioned "Santa has been naughty" which had a lingerie-clad Mrs. Claus holding a whip to strike Mr. Claus.
Not the first time for Walmart
This is not the first time that Walmart has faced such issues. Last year a shirt had printed "Impeach45", a close reference to the 45th president of the USA. This caused a major backlash from Trump supporters and was immediately removed from the store. Similarly, there have been instances of the store using a third-party seller's ad with a racist slur.
