Story by Matt Young | January 24, 2010 | Tags: christmas tree, community tree, frantz, holiday tree, smith, town council
“Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall.” — Larry Wilde
Cary, N.C. – It’s funny that one of our more read CaryCitizen stories was the controversy over what the Town would call our Christmas/Holiday/Community tree. The publisher insisted that I provide this update which I am doing dutifully.
But a common area of discourse and interest these days is what is and isn’t politically correct. I think we go over the line when we start renaming things to be PC, when the original name isn’t subversive or mean. Hence, my headline Psssst! We KNOW It’s A CHRISTMAS Tree!
CaryCitizen also set the record straight about what the media was reporting inaccurately (IMAGINE THAT?) – that the Town Council had recently changed the name of the tree to a “Holiday/Community Tree”, or that they wanted to change the name to that. Not true.
We saw this false report in blogs, local and national news. As Town Councilman Don Frantz told us, the Town of Cary has “never officially” referred to the town’s trees as “Christmas trees.” They have always been called either a “Holiday tree” or “Community tree”.
Jack Smith and Don Frantz of the Cary Town Council originally brought up the issue. Later, Mr. Frantz expressed some remorse for even bringing it up with bigger issues to be resolved.
Anyway, we are obligated to inform those of you that hadn’t heard what happened with this firestorm just in case you were “under a rock” to quote one of the Cary Town Council members’ blogs. After a month of debate the council voted 6-1 to call Cary’s tree lighting ceremony “Cary’s Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony”, and to refer to the Christmas Tree as ”Cary’s Community Christmas Tree”.
Crisis over. Common sense triumphs again.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: Who told you?
Hermey the Elf, D.D.S: Everyone in Christmas town knows.
- From Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys 2001
Robert Campbell
January 25, 2010 at 1:17 pm
So, what does it really matter what the city calls the tree? By calling it a Christmas tree they are inviting heated debate on the subject of separation of church and state. Who cares if they just call it ‘the tree’, if you hold a belief that it is a Christmas tree, then, in your mind, it’s a Christmas tree. Holiday celebrations are a part of our culture, but our culture is expanding every second to include those who do not share the beliefs instilled upon us when we were little children. Why seek to be more exclusive instead of inclusive? We’re better than this. And, I think we have much bigger issues than what to call a tree.