Oh bullshit. The university actually wanted to accomplish this, and planned on putting together a group of faculty, staff, and students to decide how best to do so for 2009, and learn about the traditions throughout the year, not just December. The university was also very explicit in allowing everyone to decorate their workspaces however they wanted. Common areas are just that, common.
It was reversed because a bunch of whiney asses bitched loudly enough.
One of his current “Factor Headlines” is titled “War on Christmas comes to Long Island.”
Quoth Mr. Moto:
Bread and wine are associated with Christianity because Jesus-- you know, the founder of the religion?-- hosted a very important meal of bread and wine. Tell me again what pine trees have to do with anything Christian? Did Jesus ever say, “Put up an evergreen tree in remembrance of me”? Did the magi bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and fir? Is there, in fact, any “Christmas” tradition associated with those trees, that isn’t identical to the Yule tradition associated with them?
I’m pretty sure the pagans didn’t stick the tree up the butt of The Chosen One, so there’s that.
Re the Christmas/Yule aside …
Symbols can be subverted, traditions subsumed.
Yes various local Winter Solstice celebrations were subverted and redefined as celebrations of Christ’s birth. The key there is that they were redefined. Their meaning was changed.
Has “Christmas” itself become so subverted as well? The claim of many is that “Christmas” no longer means a celebration of Christ’s birth but has been subsumed back into the more generalized meaning of Winter Solstice generosity, greed, gluttony, and goodwill … of whatever tradition.
The irony is that those who to some extent cling to the meaning of Christmas as more specific than that generalized Winter Solstice celebration, not letting it go the way of the original meaning of “Yule” - subverted - are being defined as declaring war on it. Odd that.
The original War On Christmas was waged by the direct spiritual ancestors of our own Religious Right. The Pilgrim Fathers brought the campaign to these shores. They won a few battles–but those who wish to celebrate, for whatever reason, have won the war.
Except for those who keep on fighting because they find the whole thing funny.
Thanks for that link; I’ve passed it on.
Although it did break my prissy little heart to see “atheists” misspelled in the URL.
What do you mean? They’re athier than anyone else, so they’re the athiest. Do you just have a problem with people who are more athy than you?
Who says they’re Christian? I don’t say they’re Christian; I say they have to do with Christmas, at least for the overwhelming majority of people who put them up. Similarly, neither eggnog nor fruitcake was served at the mangerside, but both of them are accoutremens of Christmas for most folks that use them.
sqweels, when your argument requires going to Scandinavian countries and speaking half-Norwegian (Yul) and half-English (tree), you’ve lost the argument. We’re not talking about words in other languages: “Yule tree” and “Christmas tree” are both English phrases. When you go on trying to analogize between Christians playing baseball and Christians celebrating Christmas, you’ve gone into locoland.
Everything else in your posts appeared to be just the sort of fundamentalist claptrap that really annoys me, so I confess my eyes glazed over after a bit.
Daniel
This is about five years too late, but what about a Gulf War on Christmas?
And if you take out all of the Christian parts of Christmas, what’s left is Yule. Not “inspired by”, not “co-opted from”; it’s exactly the same thing.
I call them “pre-trimmed crucifix material.”
They are whatever it is decided to call them. “Holiday trees” might (probably won’t, I agree) take off, just as “christmas tree” took off back when Christians began a campaign to start calling them that. There’s no more or less legitimacy to either one. There is no correct name for them in any absolute sense.
Yule was a secular exercise in spending and having family fights?
When you put up a Christmas tree in your house, what exactly are you thinking?
Like I said earlier, it’s all just bickering over what words to use. People are acting as if the word “Christmas” falling out of favor amounts to the entire holiday season being eliminated.
Naturally, holidays, like cultures in general, evolve. There are the pre-Christian aspects, the specifically Christian aspects, and the modern aspects.
That’s how we do it. 
But Yule wasn’t necessarily secular - I suspect it involved homage to or worship of other gods. From my outsider’s prospective, lots of Christianity involves pagan customs and beliefs adopted to make conversion less stressful. After all, aren’t saints responsible for things like sailors and towns that different from the minor gods responsible for the same things?
If I were Christian I’d think that secularizing the parts of the holiday that have nothing to do with the birth of Jesus might be something I’d support. The term “Christmas” as used in stores is no more religious than the term “holiday”.
I haven’t noticed that. It seems to me that they think the true meaning of Christmas involves buying things for people. Or maybe they think that using Merry Christmas when a Jew or Hindu buys something will help to convert us. Or maybe they’re upset that the holiday that had evolved to Christians buying lots of stuff has become both Christians and non-Christians buying lots of stuff. Where I live, if non-Christians stopped going to stores during the holiday season, the stores would be in deep doo-doo.
