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NORTH ANDOVER — An annual "Merry Christmas" sign on a North Andover fire station has been ordered removed. Town officials told firefighters last week to take down the homemade sign after they said people complained. Fire Chief William Martineau said Monday that the sign was made by firefighters about 50 years ago and never had been an issue before.

Thanksgiving is over and Black Friday has arrived. With the Christmas season now semiofficially upon us, tradition dictates that consumers flood shopping malls and online marketplaces to buy everything in sight. At the same time, politically motivated busybodies stop at nothing to distract from, deny or delete any references to that Jesus guy who may or may not have inspired the holiday known as Xmas. The "X" stands for we can't remember what. Every year, chain stores, schools, local town councils, advertisers and others needlessly put themselves in the middle of the Christmas censorship debate in an effort to appease...

Leesburg, Virginia: Looks like the traditional Loudoun County Courthouse Christmas displays will be absent this year. For almost 50 years the Rotary Club of Leesburg has placed a Christmas tree on the courthouse grounds, Leesburg Today reported. For 20 years, Dennis and Debbie Welch has set up the courthouse nativity scene. But a new policy from the Facilities and Grounds Committee of the Loudoun County Courthouse prohibits any displays, according to Leesburg Today. Phil Rusciolelli has spearheaded the Rotary Club's Christmas tree initiative the past five years.

Downtown Savannah and Broughton Street will transform into a winter wonderland Friday, complete with holiday movies, cookies and milk with Santa Claus, a skating rink and snow. Savannah Holly Days is a two-day event that offers both visitors and locals a chance to enjoy the city and all of its beauty and offerings during the holidays. "When you think about what makes a great city, it's when the locals and visitors can come together and enjoy the same thing," said Joseph Marinelli, president of the Savannah Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

SANTA ANA – The removal of a Christmas tree from the Orange County Superior courthouse Monday has prompted a petition among court employees to have the tree – connected to a gift drive for poor children – put back. The six-foot artificial tree, which was adorned with tags seeking toy donations to 'Operation Santa Claus,' was removed Monday after a member of the public complained about the tree being in the courthouse, court spokeswoman Gwen Vieau said. "It's a public building and we have to serve the diversity of our community,'' she said. The tree had been put up in...

As you can see here (via TechCrunch) a few people are mad that BestBuy’s thanksgiving advertisement features a 14-letter phrase (or 15 if you count the hyphen). Who’s going to BestBuy this weekend?

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- Wide-eyed children around the world will be hearing from Santa's "elves" at the North Pole after all. During Christmas seasons for decades, these dedicated elves responded to thousands of letters addressed to "Santa Claus, North Pole." All that was ending with a U.S. Postal Service decision to discontinue the program based in the small Alaskan town amid privacy concerns. The elves from Santa's Mailbag vowed to fight the decision, while North Pole residents voiced outrage. A reversal of the Postal Service move was announced Friday. "We never wanted to spoil people's Christmas," said agency spokesman Ernie...

Any idea when the annual war on Christmas will start hitting the media? Genereal consensus where I work, is next friday.

The mayor of North Pole, Alaska is calling a recent postal service decision an assault on Christmas. For years, the U.S. Postal Service has delivered thousands of letters to Santa Claus in North Pole, Alaska. Now, in the interest of efficiency and security, the post office has changed its policy. It will no longer deliver letters to Santa here, and requests for a North Pole postmark will be filled through its Anchorage office. The decision has angered many residents, most notably the owner of the area’s primary attraction, the Santa Claus house.

Many of us parents just learned that ONE teacher complained that it offended her and they nixed the tradition. We are HOPPING mad and plan to do something about it. Any EFFECTIVE ideas????

<p>Atheists asked the Macomb County Road Commission to rescind their order removing a privately maintained Nativity scene set at the crossroads of the city.</p> <p>The Christmas culture wars for 2009 have begun and ground zero is the Detroit suburb of Warren, which for 63 years has hosted a privately maintained Nativity scene set at the crossroads of the city.</p>

John Satawa's family has displayed a nativity scene on a street median in Warren, Mich., virtually every Christmas season since 1945, but following an intimidating letter sent by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Satawa's county has put stop to the 63-year-old tradition. The Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation proclaims its purpose in the letter to the Road Commission of Macomb County was to "protect the fundamental constitutional principle of separation of church and state." But Satawa contends there's nothing unconstitutional about his privately owned and maintained Christmas display. With the help of the Thomas More Law Center, Satawa has filed...

PHOENIX, Arizona, September 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) called on Arizona state and federal officials on Monday to stop enforcing a requirement prohibiting the state's schoolchildren from expressing religious viewpoints through Christmas themes while decorating ornaments for the 2009 Capitol Christmas Tree. Arizona was chosen this year to present 4,000 handcrafted ornaments made by elementary, middle-school, and high-school students to decorate Washington, D.C.'s annual Christmas tree. Guidelines for the ornaments include specifications for their size, weight, composition, and the directive that "Ornaments cannot reflect a religious or political theme… Instead share your interpretation of...

The Alliance Defense Fund sent a letter to Governor Brewer and other officials saying that it goes against the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. By KFYI News (KFYI News) Federal and Arizona officials, including Governor Brewer, were sent a letter by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) to stop enforcing a requirement banning kids from creating ornaments with religious themes for the 2009 Capitol Christmas Tree. Click here to read the entire letter. Arizona was given the honor of providing Washington D.C. their annual Christmas tree and having schoolchildren from around the state decorate the tree with some 4,000 ornaments....

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - This year many Christmas gifts have taken a political tone. Obama gifts have overtaken Tickle-Me Elmo and Nintendo Wii as the most popular gifts of the year. Some believe the Barack Obama presidency may have given the economy a boost even before he takes office. Many small stores have struggled in the tough economy. Some retailers say the sale of Obama merchandise has helped their slumping sales. The merchandise has become a hot item that comes in every shape and size. Tucked away in a little corner on Jefferson Street, a small specialty bookstore has suddenly transformed...

Christmas Dinner Causes Global Warming By Noel Sheppard Created 2008-12-25 12:31 First it's Christmas lights [0], now it's Christmas dinner...causing global warming. Yep. People who cook more than their guests will eat and throw the food away are destroying the planet. I'm not kidding. ABCNews.com in Australia reported [1] the following absurdity on Christmas Eve: Wasted food at Christmas time is now being highlighted as an environmental problem. Jon Dee, the chairman of Do Something, says gases from leftover food rotting in landfill are 20 times more potent than the carbon pollution from car exhausts. Mr Dee says there are...

<p>SCIENTISTS have warned that Christmas lights are bad for the planet due to huge electricity waste and urged people to get energy efficient festive bulbs. CSIRO researchers said householders should know that each bulb turned on in the name of Christmas will increase emissions of greenhouse gases.</p>

The right-wing crusade against the liberal "war on Christmas" is great for rallying the troops. Too bad the war doesn't exist. In 1959, the recently formed John Birch Society issued an urgent alert: Christmas was under attack. In a JBS pamphlet titled "There Goes Christmas?!" a writer named Hubert Kregeloh warned, "One of the techniques now being applied by the Reds to weaken the pillar of religion in our country is the drive to take Christ out of Christmas -- to denude the event of its religious meaning." The central front in this perfidious assault was American department stores, where...

A public school teacher in Mississippi marked down an eleven-year-old’s Christmas poem assignment and told the boy to rewrite it because he used the word “Jesus,” which, the instructor explained, is a name not allowed in school. Liberty Counsel, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, reports that sixth-grader Andrew White of Hattiesburg, Miss., chose to write the poem on the assignment “What Christmas means to me.” After White turned in his rough draft, however, his teacher circled the word “Jesus” and deducted a point from his grade. The teacher then explained that he needed to rewrite the poem...

My son was playing on Nick Jr.'s Free Draw making a Christmas tree and when he went to write 'merry Christmas' The program would not allow him to type the word Christmas on his drawing. The error message was "Word Blocked" (also blocked where the words and phrases: Savior, Pope, Blessed virgin Mary, St. Nick, Hark the herald angels sing, Silent night, Away in the manger, no crib for his head, and even 'Obama is the AntiChrist', but I think it was because of the word Christ, not Obama, because I was able to write his name alone.) I was...