Santa gets axed from town's tree ceremony

washingtontimes ^ | 11/29/2001 | Matthew Cella

[KQQL]

Scrooges and Grinches on the Kensington, Md. Town Council have kicked Santa Claus out of the Christmas tree-lighting ceremony this Sunday.

The four-member council

[dandelion]

I thought BurgerMeister MeisterBurger was dead.

[lowbridge]

Will There be a Santa Claus?
From the Editorial Page of FreeRepublic,
written by lowbridge, November 28, 2001

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of FreeRepublic:

"Dear Editor--I am 8 years old.
"Montgomery County community of Kensington and two families that live within the community say there wil be no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in FreeRepublic, it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth, will there be a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
115 West Ninety-fifth Street

Virginia, Montgomery County community of Kensington is wrong. They have been affected by the fascism of a politically correct age. They do not feel comfortable except they offend. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All liberal minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's are little. In this great universe of ours liberals is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there will be a Santa Claus. He will exist as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the state of Maryland if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in state and commuinity standards of politially correct offenses. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not have a Santa Claus! They might as well not have wedding ceremonies! They might get government agents to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did arrest Santa Claus, what would that acomplish? A community board bans Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there will be no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men, nor town boards can ban. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? In Maryland, of course you did, but that's no reason to arrest them. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the voting machine and see what makes the chads inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the politically correct liberal democrats that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus in Maryland! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever in FreeRepublic and Maryland. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

[arielb]

What about the people who aren't offended by Santa but they are offended by the tree?

[lowbridge]

Mayor Lynn Raufaste said council members in the town of 1,700 voted against Santa "because two families in our town felt that they would be uncomfortable with Santa Claus being a part of our event."

Two families get their way over a town of 1,700 residents because they would be "uncomfortable".

They must be the town monarchs.

Who are these families? How do they get so much power? And since when and how does Santa Claus make them feel "uncomfortable"? And why does the rest of the town have to suffer in order to make them feel better?

[arielb]

The problem is that there is a Santa Claus in Washington DC except he charges you for his bag o' goodies

[StDonTheBaptist]

This is one of those articles where we are presented with the "what" but not the "why".

Were the 2 families offended because all religious references to Christmas were being revoked, but Santa was being kept?

Perhaps the families believed that Santa was being presented as the only focus of the Christmas tree?

Just a thought.

[paul544]

Maryland is turning into quite the $h!th0!e isn't it?

[Lecie]

Want to express your thoughts to the Kennsington City Council ?

mayor.council@tok.org

susan.engels@tok.org

louise.hamilton@tok.org

shirley.watson@tok.org

cmark.joel@tok.org

[Fred25]

You know, Santa Claus was a creation of greedy capitalists and commercialism. If I recall correctly, originally, back in the mid-19th Century and earlier, some Christmas postcards had paintings of the Catholic Saint Nicholas handing out gifts to children in Europe in the winter. He was tall and thin and wore a red Cardinal’s robe which had a white fur collar and cuffs. In the 1890s he was turned into a “fat little elf” (or something like that) in the poem, “The Night Before Christmas”. A few decades later, Coca Cola began using a chubby full-sized Santa as an advertising icon at Christmas time, and this image finally became a symbol of “buy, buy, buy” commercialism. This icon suited Jewish merchants in many cities, since it was embarrassing for them to use Christian religious symbols in their stores for advertising gift-buying during the Christian holiday, but a secular commercial Santa Claus was deemed Ok. Around 1948 Rudolph was added to the reindeer group (the reindeers had originated with the 1890s poem) when Gene Autry first sang the popular novelty song, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”. So from about the 1890s on, Santa Claus (as opposed to the Catholic St. Nicholas) became a non-religious fantasy character.

However, I don’t believe in “minority rule” in cities, and I don’t think Santa should have been removed from the “Town Tree” lighting, if the majority of the local people still wanted Santa.

[fearnot]

No Santa because two families were offended? Puhleeze! I suspect the councilmembers themselves want Santa out!

[tellw]

I live in Silver Spring. Anyone interested in freeping this event maybe with some caroling?

[Gabz]

Unfortunately my local newspaper does not post its pictures on its website, or I would have put the picture that appeared onthis mornings front page.

it is a picture of the Mayor of Dover, DE standing with Santa Claus this past Monday night as the trees in front of City Hall were lit!!!!

I could not help but think about the folks of Kensington, MD when I saw that picture. Even the far-leftists in the northern part of this state include Santa in holiday festivities!!!!

The accompanying article is about our high school football team which is playing in the state championship this weeken for the first time in 13 years. The Mayor wish list for Santa Clause - a win for the Senators on Saturday!!!!

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

"But for now, the easiest solution was to cleanse the tree lighting of any religious symbolism.
So Santa had to go."

Santa Claus is a religious symbol?
Does that mean that Jingle Bells is a hymn?
That Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is a religious procession?

With news stories (and legislators) like this, The Onion has some serious competition from regular papers.

[Frumanchu]

Here's my suggestion. If I were a resident of this town, I'd be either buying or putting together a Santa Claus outfit. I would encourage everyone I knew to do the same, and we'd show up to that ceremony as the Kris F***ing Kringle Parade.

What a load of $h!t...

[Wil H]

Festive red, white and blue lights will provide the holiday glow

HOLIDAY? What Holiday? Just what holiday are these people celebrating and why are they spending public money on a tree?

I don't understand. If there is no Santa Claus and there is no Christmas just what are they celebrating?

[Wil H]

By the way, you can tell the mayor what you think of their town at mayor.council@tok.org

[rogercolleridge]

Hmmmm....why can't these two offended families "embrace cultural diversity"!!!! By the way, what religion doe Santa Claus represent??? Also, why bother having any kind of ceremony at all??

[nobdysfool]

The PC conversion of America continues...The cardinal sin, the greatest wrong that can be done to anyone is to offend them, unless of course they are Christian, then any objections by them to the PC-nistas is "hate-speech" which is equally as bad, if not more so. It's OK to offend Christians because they're "hateful" by nature. Only Christians are capable of "hate-speech", and it is impossible to offend them. Therefore, Christians become the focus of all the hate and offense that the PC -nistas cannot heap onto others of like persuasion. It's their safety valve to keep the bankruptcy of their system from causing an implosion.

I agree, everyone in town should dress up in a Santa Claus outfit, and line the parade route. The public embarrassment that the city council and the mayor will feel will go a long way toward stopping that baloney in the future. Having to parade past 2000 or so Santas might just get the point across. To those who would be affended by that, I say Tough, deal with it and quitcherbellyachin' it isn't that important.