Ellen Goodman on the so called war on Christmas

This year, as you may know, a Christmas tree donated by Nova Scotia arrived in Boston disguised as a Holiday tree. After much too much ado, it was finally lit as a Christmas tree. Meanwhile in Washington, the Capitol Holiday Tree was also rechristened by Dennis Hastert as the Capitol Christmas Tree. In Georgia too, the tree at the governor's mansion underwent a similar conversion.

In short, the sacred and co-opted evergreens of the Druids have become the symbols of the purist Christmas Christians. Somebody hug a tree for me, here we go again

-snip-

The last real war against Christmas was, in fact, a religious war. It was waged in my hometown by Puritans who banned mince pies and plum puddings and declared that celebrating Christmas was a criminal offense. In 1711, Cotton Mather gave his famous lecture against "mad mirth," "long-eating," hard-drinking and reveling "fit for not but a Saturn or Bacchus."

As for American history, let us remember that Congress convened on the first Christmas of the new Republic, Dec. 25, 1789. Christmas wasn't a federal holiday until 1870.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002672790_goodman09.html

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for fundamentalist logic. The two are unrelated.