Several readers were upset by a headline that accompanied two photos Tuesday, “Holiday trees move into place.”
Holiday trees? Those are Christmas trees, they told us in no uncertain terms.
And that’s how easy it is to find yourself in the middle of a “War-on-Christmas” minefield.
This debate goes back decades, and it contains several interesting sub-arguments.
Originally, some Christians began to feel in the 1960s and ’70s that the religious meaning of the holiday was being lost amid our increasing mania for buying and giving gifts.
In other words, materialism was overshadowing what was originally a religious occasion.
Some even said Santa himself was taking our eyes off the real “reason for the season,” the birth of Jesus Christ.
That anger was further stoked by several court decisions forbidding the use of only Christmas displays on public property.
Then, in about 2001, the argument took a new and more political turn when Fox News host John Gibson released a book titled, “The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse than You Thought.”
He and Fox talk show host Bill O’Reilly argued retailers, government and public organizations were self-censoring the use of “Christmas” in favor of multiculturalism and inclusivity.
All this in a country where people identify themselves as 79 percent Christian, 16 percent unaffiliated and about 5 percent other religions, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
In 2006, a Chicago Tribune poll found 68 percent of Americans agreed there was a war on Christmas.
Putting overheated rhetoric aside, this seems like a debate between two visions, one of a general public holiday, the other of a much narrower focus on Christmas alone.
In any event, here’s our newsroom policy:
We understand the desire to preserve the meaning of Christmas, and we also respect those who want to include all faiths, and even those without faith, in a seasonal celebration.
But we intend to report accurately rather than impose arbitrarily a single standard on all.
In other words, if a city calls it a holiday tree, as Auburn did last week, then we will call it a holiday tree.
And when Oxford Hills holds a “Christmas Parade,” as they did yesterday, we will call it a “Christmas Parade.”
Again, if it’s your tree or celebration, you name it, we’ll report it.
But rest assured that on the day before Christmas, at the top of our front page, the Sun Journal will still wish all of our readers a “Merry Christmas,” just as we have done for many years, and without contradiction or complaint.
Sun Journal, Lewiston (Nov. 25)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HEUEi2fVSA
Loved it. Thanks
Rockin’ around the “holiday” tree? lol. Oh Holiday tree, oh holiday tree? lol. New headline. Political correctness ruins Christmas. If Christmas offends you, don’t celebrate it. Pretty simple solution really. Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night.
And yet the story is about Christians screeching and being offended. Nice try at a spin though.
Amen! I say, AMEN!!!!
If you want to call your Yule tree a Christmas tree, that’s fine with me — but don’t pretend that it’s Christian. You can call it what you want, but there is no Christmas tree anywhere in the Bible. Joseph and Mary did not decorate a tree in the stable, and the Magi didn’t bring Christmas ornaments and a string of lights for the baby.
There are 9 major religious holidays in December so Happy Holidays is a more apt choice of words.
The way things are going in this country, in another ten years there will be a law against saying Merry Christmas in public. I for one intend to say it as many times as possible before that happens.
Typical crap answer. There are no laws nor is there ANY attempt to create laws to outlaw “Merry Christmas”. Businesses (in there search for ever greater profits) decreed that their employees would say Happy Holidays so as to encourage non Christians to shop for their holidays.
As for Christmas displays there is no law stopping private citizens or private corporations or entities from erecting Christmas displays, only government entities unless they erect displays for ALL religious holidays. Government institutions cannot favor any one religion because it goes against the Constitution to encourage one religion over another.
The “War against Christmas” is a ginned up controversy to get the ignorant among us riled up.
Read into the origins of the “Christmas tree”. It existed way before the advent of Christianity — it was done to celebrate the solstice and in honor of various different gods (Egyptians, Druids, Romans, Vikings, etc.). Less than 200 years ago it was seen as a pagan symbol in the US and was not accepted by Christians.
But whatever, whine all you want about it. Pretend you’re a victim, but realize that no one is being harmed when it’s called a holiday tree and no one is attacking you when they wish you a happy holidays.
Good point. Mary didn’t send Joseph out to Walmart to buy Christmas ornaments, and there is no “Christmas tree” anywhere in the Bible!
War on Christmas? The Puritans banned the celebration of Christmas in the 1600s, and you can’t really get any more religious than the Puritans.
For CHRIST’s SAKE, get it, Jesus H Christ, stop your pattering. If you want to say Christmas, say it! If you don’t don’t say it. Obviously many people have little to worry about!!!
Fox News makes a big deal out of the so-called “war on Christmas” every year. Much ado about nothing.
I believe Eric Idle’s contribution to the caroling hymnal says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H2mrV6vSPY
Thanks — irreverent, sure to offend some folks, and very funny!
Having grown up with fir Christmas trees and real candles (a bucket of water always at the ready), Christmas is rather different now that plastic trees and conspicuous consumption rule. Why should it matter what anyone prefers to call this Holiday? After all, it all started with the pagan Yule feast, converted into Christmas by missionaries eager to get non-believers into church. As to the actual month of Jesus’ birth, September would have been far more likely.
Actually, sometime in the Spring.
If you think that Luke’s account of shepherds in the fields watching their flocks by night is part of a story that is historical, then yes, the spring is likely.
Many Bible scholars believe that the two New Testament accounts of Jesus’ birth were written, not by eyewitnesses, but by second-or-third-generation Christians who were creating symbolic stories of his nativity. They are testimonies of faith, not history.
I remember when I was a kid getting very upset, to the point of tears the day my mother brought home a fake tree. I was probably 9 or 10 at the time. I don’t think she realized what it meant to me but my fiancee does and we’ll be going out to cut ours down this weekend. Nothing like a real Christmas tree (people can call it what they want, it’s not up to me to decide what people do in their homes) sitting in the living room, lit up at night, with a fire going in the stove! (We also take all necessary precautions and keep at more than a safe distance from the fire.) This time of year means different things to different people. As long as I’m respected I have no issue respecting the beliefs of others.
Just heard a great sermon from a church in CT, forwarded to me by a family member. Bottom line; create your own treasured memories both in and out of church and value them. As for Santa Claus vs. the Christ child, I agree with the often condemned vignette of Santa Claus bending over the manger. No reason why the season of giving (without the commercialism) can’t be part of a “true” Christmas observance.
I say “Merry Christmas” because it is the tradition of my family… not because of the religious connotations.
If you do too, cool… if you choose to say “Happy Holidays”, then cool too.
Pick your term, and go for it… it is really meaningless.
We watched A Wonderful Life the other night, just like we do every year at Christmas time. I couldn’t help but notice how much more we look like Pottersville these days instead of Bedford Falls.