It’s a Christmas Tree, Dammit!

From the Ottawa Citizen, a story about both a Christmas tree in Canada, as well as one a Canadian donated to Boston.

Tradition trumps inclusiveness

It’s a Christmas tree

Rideau Hall performed a rapid about-face on the name of its seasonal evergreen yesterday after a staff member called it a “holiday tree” in a CBC interview.

“At Rideau Hall, we will be putting up a holiday tree as we find it reflects the traditions of many cultures, and it is inclusive,” Rideau Hall spokeswoman Lucie Brosseau said.

Not so fast. Soon after, in response to a query from the Citizen, Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean’s spokesman said there had been a mistake. It was a Christmas tree after all.

The Governor General had always intended for the tree to be of the Christmas variety, Randy Mylyk said, but there was an error by a “well-intentioned” employee.

Glad they got that straight.

Now about the Boston situation:

The Christmas-holiday confusion comes a week after a Canadian tree donated to the city of Boston became a hot-button issue. Boston bureaucrats attracted the ire of a Nova Scotia logger by calling the 14-metre white spruce he donated to the city a “holiday tree” in a press release.

Last week, after evangelist Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Counsel threatened to sue Boston for spreading misinformation about Christmas celebrations in public places, logger Donnie Hatt said if he knew Boston had decided to call his spruce a “holiday tree” he would have put it through the wood chipper.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino told reporters last Thursday that he would call the spruce a Christmas tree.

“I grew up with a Christmas tree, I’m going to stay with a Christmas tree,” he said.

Attempts to be “inclusive” in issues like this are misguided, since one is basically trying to placate atheists, Jews and Moslems — most of whom don’t need to be placated anyway, since they are tolerant of other religions — by assaulting Christian traditions. Not very “inclusive” toward Christians.

The proper form of “inclusiveness” is for government and American society to fully recognize other religious holidays. It is, in fact, quite routine to publicly display (often on public property) a Menorah to mark Hanukkah.

We don’t know of anybody who objects to this. If we find somebody, we’ll think them a bigot.

But then, how is objecting to the Menorah any worse than getting bent out of shape at a Christmas tree that’s called a Christmas tree?