Press Release Town of Kensington Maryland

Not even Dr. Suess could have attracted this much attention to our annual Tree Lighting in Kensington, but we feel all the attention is missing a key point: this year is different than most years. The events of September 11 require a different kind of ceremony.

We want to be responsive to all those who need to come together for a moment of unity and family togetherness this holiday season. That's why in October, at our Town Council meeting, we made changes to our program to accommodate our response to the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.

We now suspect that Santa Claus(es) will show up one way or another. Santa is always welcome and we sure won't send him to the hills above Whoville, even if he doesn't have a formal invitation from the Town of Kensington.

One way or another, we will have a ceremony that celebrates our local heros from the firefighters, police, postal workers and military. We will show that the Town of Kensington knows how to come together and knows not to take itself too terribly seriously. Most of all, we will have some fun with our kids which is what this event is all about in the first place.

Kensington, Maryland - Like many other communities around the nation, the Kensington Town tree will be lit up in red, white and blue this holiday season. On Sunday, December 2nd, the community will celebrate the American spirit and will honor the first responders to the tragedies of September 11th and its own fire fighters, police officers, mail carriers and military with lights and music.

In a flyer mailed to all Town residents earlier this month, the modified annual tree lighting ceremony was announced as an opportunity to come together as "we aspire for peace and unity throughout the world." "This year, more than ever," the Mayor said, "we need to come together as Americans and celebrate our freedoms and the men and women who have risked their lives to ensure our freedoms."

The festivities will begin at 4:00 p.m. with music performed by students from the Levine School of Music who will be on hand to perform some of the songs that bind us together as Americans. Community members will enjoy hot chocolate and cookies during the performance. Children have been asked to bring decorations of peace to be placed on a Banner of Peace. The Banner will be displayed in Town Hall throughout the holiday season.

The ceremony will be capped by the traditional lighting of the tree. This year the community has decided that instead of Santa at the switch, the Mayor will be joined by a local firefighter, police officer and U.S. Postal Service mail carrier. The tree will be lit in red, white and blue lights.

During the ceremony, charitable donations will be collected for Crossways Community, a residential/day care facility in Kensington for underprivileged children. Residents have been asked to bring diapers, baby wipes or formula which will be delivered to the Crossways Community nursery.

You're such an ignoramous, Fred25. Some of our best Christmas songs were written by Jews:

Are you nuts?! I didn’t say anything about “Jews”. And I didn’t say “Christmas” songs, I said “Christian” songs.

Last year in Albuquerque, New Mexico, one high school’s choral group wasn’t allowed to sing any Christian songs during their annual Christmas concert.

Local city civic government secularism is taking Christian songs out of public Christmas events. The Kensington “Town Tree” ceremony isn’t even a “Christmas event”, it’s a “holiday season” event. Christmas tree events are being co-opted by other groups to represent their holidays.

Anyway, your list includes only winter-season commercial songs designed for playing to shoppers on the Macy’s PA system during December so they will buy more stuff.

"All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth,” is not considered to be a “Christian” song.

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.

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