NEWS: Boston City Officials Say It Is A 'Holiday' Not 'Christmas Tree'

Christian religious leaders across the United States are disturbed by what appears to be yet another attempt to kill expressions of the Christian faith and to dissolve all religious meaning from the observance and celebration of Christmas. Condemnation of the city's renaming of the Boston "Christmas Tree" to "Holiday Tree" is coming in from all over the country, and Liberty University president Jerry Falwell has threatened to file a lawsuit over the controversy. The grower of the tree Donnie Hatt told a Canadian newspaper. "If they decide it should be a holiday tree, I'll tell them to send it back. If it was a holiday tree, you might as well put it up at Easter."



Most polls that I have read online show that more then 94% are in favor of naming them Christmas Trees, so why is it that Americans as a whole have to bow to what just a few want?

Each and every year we go thru this kind of furor and there is no need for it. It is time for those who believe in the Christmas spirit to do as religious leaders did too Wal-Mart call for a boycott and tell them to put Christmas back into the season rather then taking it out by insisting employees using what they term to be a PC correct statement. It worked with Wal-Mart and I tend to think that if we told our elected officials that we would not vote for them, they would think twice


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Sounds like religious oppression to me. I love Christmas trees.

they called it a holiday tree so it wouldnt offend anyone. you wanna call it a christmas tree go ahead, they call it a holiday tree, fine with me.

if they were saying you call it a holiday tree or we are arresting you, that would be something different. but thats not the case, they do it so they dont offend anyone.

personally i dont see what the big deal is, you arent being forced to call it a holiday tree. you could call it 'the illuminated pine tree' for all i care, your choice. if no one is offended by the name 'holiday tree' (not to be confused with the actual changing of the name) then whats the problem? they arent oppressing you. last time i remember you can still call it a christmas tree.

Originally posted by grimreaper797

personally i dont see what the big deal is, you arent being forced to call it a holiday tree. you could call it 'the illuminated pine tree' for all i care, your choice. if no one is offended by the name 'holiday tree' (not to be confused with the actual changing of the name) then whats the problem? they arent oppressing you. last time i remember you can still call it a christmas tree.

Imagine somebody calling me a person from North America but not American. That I be offended. But then they are just trying to make everybody happy in their view, right?

Originally posted by grimreaper797
they called it a holiday tree so it wouldnt offend anyone. you wanna call it a christmas tree go ahead, they call it a holiday tree, fine with me.

What other holiday during this time of year (or any time of year for that matter) has the tradition of decorating a tree? It's a Christmas tree, and nothing else.

Here in New York, the city puts menorahs up everywhere on gov't property this time of year, and unlike a Christmas tree, that really truly is a religious symbol. Nobody calls it a holiday candelabra or some other PC term, nor should they. They'd never dare spend money on putting up nativity scenes though...

Originally posted by grimreaper797
they called it a holiday tree so it wouldnt offend anyone. you wanna call it a christmas tree go ahead, they call it a holiday tree, fine with me.

Fine by me also, don't see what the big deal is, call it what you like and others shall do the same.

Oh and lol @ Christian groups threatening lawsuits, who are they going to sue and what law is being broken here ?

Originally posted by ImJaded
Oh and lol @ Christian groups threatening lawsuits, who are they going to sue and what law is being broken here ?

Sue the governments doing this!

The constitutional rights and laws being broken are the free exercise of religion and religious discrimination.

Also, many officials (especially in schools) try to say that they're just following some mythical hardline "separation of church and state" interpretation they say is the law. If the courts give an opinion that that's not the law, the officials won't have that crutch.

[edit on 12/1/2005 by djohnsto77]

I have heard more and more about this in many stores. It is an easy problem to solve... Only do your Christmas shopping at stores that sell Christmas items. Go to the manager and tell them that maybe next year they may want to sell Christmas things that you will only buy Christmas presents, decorations, etc. at places that sell them. Then the "holiday" trees, cards, etc. will dissapear.

Let these stores know not to bite the hand that feeds them!!

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I love American version of holidays celebration.

I grew up without Santa or Christmas trees, so all this sounds so idealistic and so full of ideology that it borders on funny.

But hey I love American Christmas anyway, be full of lights and Christmas trees or just the joy of looking at the stores with so much beautiful decorations.

Plus I love the shopping too.

Hey, lets be real now, its not a holy tree or a Christmas tree is just a plain old pine tree.

And that is the true.

Any way lets keep American Christmas just the way they are Santa sure add more color to the festivities than the baby Jesus.

And that is what I grew up celebrating.

I call my tree a Xmas tree.
We put a bunch of presents under it that are all wrapped up with Xmas paper. Some presents we hide away until Xmas eve and then we put it under the tree pretending Stanta Clause put them there. On Xmas day we all wake up, run down the stairs and open up or presents. We sing Xmas songs like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Then in the evening we have a big feast with our extended family.

never did i justify menorahs being used either....unless youd like to quote it.

everybody says its breaking free exercise of religion? lmao dont get me started. you still have the right to call it a christmas tree and celebrate christmas, so what right are they infringing on? i see none, simply because they dont want to call it a christmas tree in no way means they are stopping you from exercising the religion you choose to follow. yes they are breaking down on it being everywhere in public like it was an advertisement. its not ever restricting or violating your right as an individual, and such a case would never hold up in court.

further more i am glad seperation from church and state exists because i dont ever want to hear about god or jesus when im trying to learn about physics. i im agnostic and choose to not take any opinion on whether a god exists but it pisses me off when people like you (directed at all of those having a hissy fit about it not being called a christmas tree and not having religion part of school) think that i want to hear about it while im trying to learn something. i have nothing against practice of any sort of religion, but i dont want to hear about it at all.

that is how it works, i dont want anyones opinions and views being pressed on me. when i see it on tv all the time it gets irritating. if it were in schools id probably drop out.

Originally posted by djohnsto77

Originally posted by ImJaded
Oh and lol @ Christian groups threatening lawsuits, who are they going to sue and what law is being broken here ?

Sue the governments doing this!

Ahhhh thank you for clarifying for me, I was a little dumbfounded at how and who. Thanks
Just as an afterthought, being that my family doesn't celebrate Christmas which probably explains my blase(sp) attitude towards this, perhaps now I too can have a 'holiday tree' lol



[edit on 1-12-2005 by ImJaded]

What's the big deal? We're only seeing the renaming of government funded (or on public property) Christian expression. Would you be all for spending tax payers money on every other religion or giving it public space? How would you feel about your tax dollar going to pay for a statue of Buddha or something similar? No one is stopping Christians from expressing their "Christian" symbols during Christmas, its just not going to be out of the taxpayers pocket or on public property any more. Fair is fair after all.

Also I see people up in arms about the renaming of the cities Christmas tree because of its supposed oppression of Christians. Well there's nothing crucial to Christianity about Christmas trees, its a 16th century German adaptation of pagan rituals. They're about as Christian as Coca-Cola's Santa Claus.

Among early Germanic tribes the Yule tradition was celebrated by sacrificing male animals, and slaves, by suspending them on the branches of trees. According to Adam of Bremen, in Scandinavia the pagan kings sacrificed nine males of each species at the sacred groves every ninth year. According to one legend, Saint Boniface attempted to introduce the idea of trinity to the pagan tribes using the cone-shaped evergreen trees because of their triangular appearance.

The modern custom, however, cannot be shown to be descended from pagan tradition directly. Its origins can be traced to 16th century Germany: Ingeborg Weber-Keller (Marburg professor of European ethnology) identified as the earliest reference a Bremen guild chronicle of 1570 which reports how a small fir was decorated with apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers, and erected in the guild-house, for the benefit of the guild members' children, who collected the dainties on Christmas day.

Christmas Trees

You could possibly interpret this as a state-sponsored push to purge Christmas of its materialistic and corrupted ideals. This is not to say that I don't love Christmas. I do, well the modern areligious interpretation of it. I just happen to agree that in modern Western nations we should'nt have one religion receiving state funding or public land any more. Im not a Christian and I don't want my tax dollar going to religious expression, Christian or otherwise.

Edit: Just pipped you at the post APC

[edit on 1/12/05 by subz]

Bah you beat me to it subz! I just clicked reply and was about to say "But using trees isn't even a Christian idea..."

What does the tree part of the holiday really have to do with the religion? I can see being upset because someone wanted to rename 'the manger of baby Jesus' to 'the birth scene of the holiday', but what does a tree, presents and Santa Clause have to do with the celebration of the birth of Christ?

I'm with the few on this one. I personally don't care what anyone calls it, but a tree has nothing to do with the birth of Christ.

The Spring Bunny is just around the corner.

Edit: And I didn't read the other posts because I"m in a hurry.



[edit on 1-12-2005 by Benevolent Heretic]

forget for a minute the whole christian aspect of this argument. instead, lets look at the numbers:

according to shots (and i'm assuming that his number is correct), 94% of americans support calling them "christmas trees."

so, IMHO, the problem has nothing to do with religion. it is simply the government ignoring the majority (94%) to appease the minority (6%) in a democratic society. am i the only one who has a problem with this? and this is not just an isolated case. more and more often a very small percentage of people in this country are pushing their beliefs (or lack there of) on the majority. i dont care whether or not you believe in god, buddha, allah, or the freaking easter bunny. you have every right to believe whatever you want...that's what makes this country so great. but the government has absolutely no right to stomp on the beliefs on the majority in order to appease the non-beliefs of the minority.

for those of you who believe so strongly in the idea of seperation of church and state, you need to read its wording very carefully. in addition to guarantying that the government will not force any particular religion on the country, it is supposed to insure that the government does not infringe upon the rights of any religious group. however, our government continuously seems to pick on christianity while trying very hard not to anger muslims, atheists, hindus, and other religious minorities in the US (yes, i consider atheism a religion....the belief in nothing is still a belief).

snafu, thats the thing tho, our country isnt about majority rule, but fair rule respecting everyone, minority or not.

Maybe this will be the straw which breaks the camels back and Jesus will return in order to put commercialism back into a holiday which vaguly resembles a story which may or may not be contributed to his birth at all!

- Jesus was not born on Christmas day, that's readily admitted to and the 25th Dec is only a 'tribute'.
- The guiding star and wisemen story is historically NOT a Christian story, nor the true story of Jesus' birth because it was told thousands of years in similar form in other religions before Jesus was even born - that's a fact so the star on the tree is not a Christian element.
- The guiding star story has even been proven to be an astrological occurance which happens every 500 years or so and causes a star and planet to look like one giant star which sits almost still in the sky for a couple years. This is what the 'wisemen' followed and they didn't arrive until Jesus was around 3 or 4 years old.
- The wisemen story was lifted and adapted from the Buddhists who used a similar tatic of visiting certain children a couple years after their birth to test them to see if they are the Dali Lama reincarnate by bringing them gifts, some of which are great riches, others which are simple items which used to belong to the last Dali Lama - the chosen one always picks the right items and this is the likelyhood of why Jesus got what he did, it was a test not a bunch of pointless gifts that a baby has no use for.
- Santa has nothing to do with Christmas.
- The tree has nothing to do with Jesus.

If "Christmas" is purely a religious holiday for Christians then they aren't really to educated on the history of the Christmas holiday or the birth of Jesus and if the tree has nothing to do with Jesus either, then changing it to a name which can be enjoyed by everyone as a commercial end of year holiday as it is, should not be a bad thing.

Like others have said, until it's against the law to call a tree what you want, it's pretty obvious that the tree isn't a Christian icon so therefor it shouldn't be publically labelled as one - but you can call it what ever makes you happy.

If they arrest you for not calling it a 'holiday tree' then we'll start talking about 'religious oppression'.

Surely it's better calling it a 'holiday tree' that everyone can enjoy rather than identifying it as a "Christian Tree" which will mean that realestate should be equally divided and represented by all religions as an act of equality.

I don't take it as an infringement on any religion... I take it as a personal attack on traditions of the good old U.S.A.

I don't see the bible talking about Santa, elves, Rudolph, or trees... there for I see no reason to say that it is a separation of church and state. I think it is a personal attack on traditions.

How many of you that are for the change are going to complain when the fourth of July is removed, because some religious group thinks that we by pledging to the flag are infringing on their religious right because they say it is a false idol.

If we are destroying holidays, then there goes St. Patty's Day, St. Valentine's Day, memorial day, and any other holiday you can think of.

I am sick of the traditions of this country being destroyed, because a few people find it offensive. Its just like anything else, if you don't like don't do it, but QUIT telling me that I cannot enjoy something that has been a part of my life since I was born.

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