It’s a Christmas tree, for pete’s sake

What Germans call a Tannenbaum, Americans call a Christmas tree.

That’s what it is, a tree that is put up in people’s homes at Christmas. They do it whether they celebrate the holiday as a time to mark the birth of Jesus Christ or they just use the holiday as a time to get together with family, exchange gifts and have a good time.

So, why all the controversy?

Well, some view it as a separation of church and state issue. If a city or town puts up a Christmas tree, some think that they are endorsing one religion over another.

Not being a very religious guy, I don’t view the tree as a religious symbol, but I guess if you see Christmas as only a Christian holiday then any symbol related to Christmas is a religious symbol.

Sorry, Rudolph.

The truth is that Christmas is celebrated by Christians and non-Christians alike, but the month of December also features the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, which is an African-American and Pan-African holiday. I can see that it is not fair for a government to choose to celebrate one holiday over the others.

So, what’s the answer?

Do we take the word Christmas off of every thing that a city, state or federal office may be associated with?

While some readers may be nodding their heads to this suggestion, the answer is, of course not. Instead of striking things out, open things up. If we are worried that our Jewish friends or area residents that celebrate Kwanzaa may be upset about being left out of the annual city-wide celebration, let them in.

Would it really be that difficult to include a menorah and a dredil or the seven candles of Kwanzaa as symbols at the party? Does that take away anything from the fun?

No.

There’s nothing wrong with learning about other traditions, especially on city property, where no one religion should be favored above any other. It would probably do the world a lot of good if we took more time to learn about other cultures.

For those who only want to hear about and celebrate their faith, you have that in your home and at your place of worship. If you are going to dip into the city’s budget to throw a bash for the public to attend during the holidays, include everybody and then every tradition and term can stay.

Nobody can complain if a children’s chorus adds “Silent Night” to their repertoire, as long as “Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah” maybe makes it in there as well. Heck, they just want to sing “Jingle Bells” with the alternate lyrics anyway.

I just get the feeling that people are making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be and it just serves as another example of how litigious this society has become and how paranoid of lawsuits everybody is.

So, now we have people wanting to pick fights and blame one side or the other for trying to “ruin Christmas.” It’s all a bunch of malarkey and it could be taken care of by adopting the sentiment broadcast in dozens of Christmas specials and being nice to people.

Nobody is asking Christians to take down their religious displays, as long as they aren’t on city property. They can be at a church or in your front yard and nobody says, “Boo.” And that’s right.

And people shouldn’t have a problem with the word “Christmas” either. The definition may be “a Christian feast commemorating the birth of Jesus,” but its meaning is much more broad; hence Santa Claus, flying reindeer, the Grinch, the Red Ryder BB gun, Tim Allen, Jingle Bells and so on.

There are a lot of people in this country and everybody has the right to celebrate the holidays as they wish. Nobody should be made to feel as if their holiday is more or less important than the others, no matter how one may feel about it personally.