College wants group to sell Holiday, not Christmas, trees

[Baltimatt]

Quickly reversed itself

To members of BEST Society, a student club at Western Piedmont Community College in North Carolina, it sounded like a nice idea. In order to raise money for Angel Tree, an organization that “connects incarcerated parents with their children through the delivery of Christmas gifts,” they would sell Christmas trees to the public during the holiday season.

The warm-hearted plan took a Grinch-like turn, however, when school administrators unilaterally removed the words “Christmas trees” from the club’s online announcement and replaced them with the words “holiday trees.”

After hearing from lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom, the school announced that the group would be selling Christmas trees.

How ridiculous on the part of the school administration. They're Christmas trees. Christmas is a legal holiday in this country and the trees are associated with that specific holiday. It's not specifically religious.

And what's with the picture from Glasgow, Scotland, with a sign reading "Christmas Tree's [sic] For Sale"?

[bmorepunk]

I had no idea Christmas and Jesus were attached until I was seven years old. We secularites own Christmas and happily run afoul of Fox New's yearly "War on Christmas" silliness.

[Joy in Mudville]

I had no idea Christmas and Jesus were attached until I was seven years old.

Dude, the Greeks nailed Jesus to spruce tree and St Nick gave the sacred shroud of Turin to the kids in Tiny Tim's orphanage. Your parents raised you funny.

[ms maggie]

Dude, the Greeks nailed Jesus to spruce tree and St Nick gave the sacred shroud of Turin to the kids in Tiny Tim's orphanage. Your parents raised you funny.

And Jesus rises from the dead on Easter. If he sees his shadow there's six more weeks of lent.

[bmorepunk]

Dude, the Greeks nailed Jesus to spruce tree and St Nick gave the sacred shroud of Turin to the kids in Tiny Tim's orphanage. Your parents raised you funny.

They never really talked about religion or politics, which I appreciate. I think they were more concerned with making sure we were taken care of and I wasn't screwing up too bad.

I am the poster child for Christians who don't like the Paganism.

[Grindelwald]

A holiday tree.

[ms maggie]

I love how the Fox folks get all hysterical about these stories and solemnly call this and various ACLU activities a"war on Christmas". When any moron knows that the true enemy of religious Christmas is that fat guy in the red suit.

[dsummoner]

The Christians stole the Winter solstice and Saturnalia from the pagans, fair and square. The stolen pagan traditions of the Christians are not some random 'holiday' traditions in the same way that the stolen Ka'aba from the Meccan polytheists is not some random 'holiday' stone.

[Joy in Mudville]

The Christians stole the Winter solstice and Saturnalia from the pagans, fair and square. The stolen pagan traditions of the Christians are not some random 'holiday' traditions in the same way that the stolen Ka'aba from the Meccan polytheists is not some random 'holiday' stone.

I'm not sure I would put it that way. I think it was more of a grudging admission by the Catholics of the early Middle Ages that certain 'old habits' were going to die hard so it was better to either flat out piggy back onto them as with the date of Christmas or simply tolerate them as with various yuletide customs which may or may have included the Christmas tree.

[Brohan]

I love how the Fox folks get all hysterical about these stories and solemnly call this and various ACLU activities a"war on Christmas". When any moron knows that the true enemy of religious Christmas is that fat guy in the red suit.

I like the people who get all hysterical about the people getting all hysterical.

[dsummoner]

I'm not sure I would put it that way. I think it was more of a grudging admission by the Catholics of the early Middle Ages that certain 'old habits' were going to die hard so it was better to either flat out piggy back onto them as with the date of Christmas or simply tolerate them as with various yuletide customs which may or may have included the Christmas tree.

Custom adoption coupled with contextual reframing (the latter being varied in form) would appear to be a normative process with the expansion of temporally newer religions into regions replete with followers of established, older, religions. If memory serves correctly, the use of the evergreen tree, in part or in whole, had multiple historical loci that predated Christianity but with the specific historical loci being most relevant to Christianity being found with Germanic forms of paganism and Scandinavian paganism. The 'normalization' of the 'Christmas tree' is an affectation of the 18th-20th centuries (but with much deeper roots as per your post).

[SalisburySage]

I am not a christian but its utter nonsense to try to eradicate Christmas by using words like Holiday tree. Such people need to get a life and be placed in a stock and have rotten vegetables thrown at them for about an hour.

[ivanbalt]

Happy Holidays is for terrorists. Merry Christmas!

[bystander]

Dude, the Greeks nailed Jesus to spruce tree and St Nick gave the sacred shroud of Turin to the kids in Tiny Tim's orphanage. Your parents raised you funny.

I think you mean the Romans.

[bystander]

Happy Holidays is for terrorists. Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS to you and yours Ivan!

[Norman]

So where will I get my Hanukkah bush???

[bullmikey]

So where will I get my Hanukkah bush???

Use your imagination.

[CajunRaven]

So where will I get my Hanukkah bush???

A Jewish run Firehouse?

[ms maggie]

I am not a christian but its utter nonsense to try to eradicate Christmas by using words like Holiday tree. Such people need to get a life and be placed in a stock and have rotten vegetables thrown at them for about an hour.

Now that, that is the Christmas spirit!!!

[kandace]

Colleges engaging in dumbness like this contributes to rampant anti-intellectualism in our society.