Let’s not be disingenuous

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Friends, that tree you see in every town in New Hampshire, the one with all of the lights and, usually, the star on the top? You know what that is?

It’s a Christmas tree.

Why are so many people, particularly politicians, afraid to acknowledge that?

Recently, for instance, Lincoln Chafee, the governor of Rhode Island, announced that the state’s tree would be known as a “Holiday Tree.” Why?

We know why: Chafee is afraid to offend anyone who doesn’t celebrate Christmas and fears that by calling it a Christmas tree, someone who is an absolutist about the separation of church and state will sue.

Well, we are absolutists, but it has never bothered us when a town, a city or a state calls its official Christmas tree a Christmas tree because that is what it is. Sorry, but a tree fraught with lights and, usually, with a star on top that goes up every year a few weeks before Dec. 25, is not celebrating Hanukkah. It is celebrating Christmas.

That said, it would be a great idea to include a menorah in whatever space a town, city, state or nation locates its Christmas tree. Indeed, those entities could include symbols of any religion’s holiday. Why not? We’re all part of this melting pot, aren’t we? Well, let’s celebrate all of us.

But let’s not be silly and try to convince anyone that a Christmas tree is anything but that.