We’re still a long way out from Christmas, even though one Seattle radio station is already playing holiday music around the clock, and gift catalogs have been clogging mailboxes since Halloween. Very soon, public schools and government buildings will decide what kind of displays will adorn their lobbies and classrooms. Here’s hoping that this year we can enjoy Christmas without any more intrusions from the forces of political correctness.
Let’s start with Christmas trees. A few years ago the King County library system decided it was “no longer appropriate” to allow Christmas trees on the premises because some people didn’t celebrate Christmas (actually, Christmas is the most observed holiday of the year).
When the media found out, the trustees hastily reversed the decision. In 2005 the principal of Medina Elementary took down a spiral lighted Christmas tree because of concerns that someone might be offended. “We took it down because we didn’t want it to become an issue,” said a school staffer shortly before it became a national issue.
In 2006, the Port of Seattle went even further. After decades of decorating Sea-Tac airport with Christmas trees, the staff panicked and ordered them removed in the middle of the night because a local rabbi asked if he could have a large Menorah displayed for Hanukah. The following year the port replaced Christmas with a “winter theme” that displayed what appeared to be dead tree limbs sticking out of fake snow. Coincidentally I flew to Hawaii that December and arrived to see a huge decorated Christmas tree in the airport atrium, complete with a small sign pointing out that the evergreen came from Washington State.
Some public schools, Bellevue’s included, don’t even allow Christmas trees because they don’t want to mix “church and state”.
Please, enough of this nonsense. Let us set the record straight about the law and the cultural origins of Christmas trees.
There is absolutely no legal prohibition in state or federal law against displaying Christmas trees in public buildings. None. The Constitution protects, not prohibits the display of Christmas trees.
As for complaints about Christmas trees being a “Christian symbol,” they are simply misplaced. Christmas trees trace their origins back to pagan cultures in Scandinavia. As we all know, evergreens can brave fierce weather, and Vikings would bring them into their homes to symbolize perseverance in the face of icy Nordic winters. Many years later, Christians in Europe would light their trees with candles. But the tree is not mentioned in The Bible or in any other major Christian document, nor has it ever been sanctioned as a symbol of any religious denomination.
In short, Christmas trees are no more a symbol of Christianity than the word “holiday” (a hybrid of “holy days”), gift giving (the three Wise Men) or even candy canes, which author Ace Collins has traced back to 17th century Germany, when a choirmaster convinced a candy maker to shape candy sticks into the shape of a shepherd’s crook, and handed them out to fidgeting kids before Mass.
So let us dispense with these faux legal concerns about Christmas trees, and other complaints that are rooted in ignorance, rather than awareness or knowledge. There are plenty of Grinches who want to steal Christmas. Let us finally, politely, ignore them.
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