Do Christmas Trees Make You Feel Uncomfortable?

Donohue: “Look, if you find it offensive, just convert to Catholicism!”

I threw up in my mouth a little. What fascist, totalitarian dictator hasn’t said some version of that before torturing and killing people?

OK, so I have to admit that the notion that you could feel excluded exclusively because of the presence of a Christmas tree seems a little alien to me. I mean a manger scene I could get, but even though we call it a Christmas tree, the thing is so far removed from the religious aspect of Christmas that treating it like a religious symbol seems a bit silly.

I think it’s a lot more likely that some people with Christmas trees in their workplace feel excluded because their co-workers also go on and on about it being CHRISTmas and take advantage of the festival to be even more overtly pious and judgemental of the heathens.

I’m writing this in my lab. Over my shoulder above the laminar flow hood, there’s a sparkly decoration with a little snowman attached. At the entrance to the centre there’s a small brightly decorated Christmas tree. Some people even make manger scenes out of lab materials (nowhere near that creative, in most cases). I think that at least 70% of the folks at my centre are atheists outright and fewer than 10% are actually Christians in any real sense. It’s about the company you keep, not the decorations around you, IMO.

It’s not a Christian symbol to begin with, regardless of how some folks now may take it.
I have a hardcore Muslim aunt who has done the Hajj three times and she puts up a Christmas tree in her home.
I had a Jewish boss (an observing, practicing Jew)that gave every employee (200 plus) a turkey, a Christmas card and a cash bonus for Christmas. Both the headquarters and the manufacturing facility were decorated tastefully for the holidays, including several Christmas trees.
If employers want to put up Christmas trees, they have that right. If some employees feel excluded, they need to grow thicker skins and grow up.
A Christmas tree is only a problem if you make it a problem and it is not going to make me uncomfortable unless someone tries to shove it in my ass.

I like Christmas trees and no right wing fruit cake will force me to associate a Yule symbol with their silly imaginary friend.

Nativities I would call divisive, crosses and crucifixes I would call divisive, but Christmas trees? Are they really such a big deal. There’s not a more secular symbol of Christmas than Christmas trees, and if Dave Silverman sees the ultimate secularization of Christmas as inevitable, then he should embrace the secular aspects that exist in the holiday.

Do Christmas Trees Make You Feel Uncomfortable?

Absolutely not. It’s pagan. Renown and certified grinch Tom Flynn (“The Trouble With Christmas”) says the only pure christian addition to xmas is the Midnight Mass. Everything else is at least partly pagan.

I guess it can depend on the ‘environment’. If the tree gets heavily invested with Jebus in a community then it can become the object of contention.

Nothing wrong with a tradition of throwing a party at the darkest day of the year. But if and then it becomes about power, thats different.

I have a tree in my house….decorated with snowmen and reindeer and lots of crap my kids made! Nary an angel in sight. Like all the other posters said, its PAGAN! And they are fun and pretty. Screw the Christians, they aren’t claiming this one too.

Tell those darn Christians to get their claims off our pagan trees!!! Take winter solstice away from the Christians and tell them that their god is not wanted in our winter festivities.

At my workplace we have Christmas trees, Jewish Hanukkah symbols, and all kinds of other decorative things. I don’t feel offended at all.

I don’t have a problem with the trees – if I did, it would only be because yet another phallic-based shine has become entrenched in society. *sigh* Penis worship…. but anyway, no, I enjoy decorating the evergreens and find them to be representative of the solstice celebrations over the Xian co-ops.

I have problems with manger scenes. Have them on private property all you want, but keep them out of the public way.

@phira,
Oh, where to begin?

“…Insisting that because the trees were originally a pagan symbol and therefore aren’t alienating for non-Christians is sort of like insisting that because the Nazi party appropriated the swastika, it’s not offensive. It’s ignoring context.”

No, it’s not fucking “sort of like” that at all. You constructed a straw-man of the argument that was proffered which is that it is silly for non-Christians to be offended by a symbol that isn’t Christian. Nobody sane is going to state that a Christmas tree isn’t alienating to some people, however that is their choice to be offended. You have made a conscious choice to be offended. If anything is truly offensive, it is your bizarre analogy between festively decorated pine trees and the hakenkreuz.

“I grew up in a Jewish family and am still a somewhat practicing Jew, as well as an atheist.*”

And therein lies the crux of your problem. It’s not a religious issue for you, it’s a cultural one. A little honest self-assessment is in order here. Don’t like decorated pine trees in the winter time? Move to a place where there isn’t a cultural tradition of doing so or stay here and deal with it and let others live their lives in peace.

I’ll have to say Megyn is handling these segments better as well… less inane questions, less insulting accusations. This was one of the less worthless bits I’ve seen from these players. Maybe it’ll evolve into actual discourse. If so, it’ll be thanks in big part to Dave who conducts himself admirably every time.

Glaedelig Jul everybody.

I suspect most of us who come from either a christian cultural or humanist cultural background might have little trouble with the trees (barring ones that are overtly religious). People from other backgrounds (e.g., Jews, Muslims, certain Christians who don’t celebrate Christmas) even if now non-religious are more likely to be uncomfortable.

Personally I have no problems with trees at work (assuming no fire danger and no overt religion) though I didn’t approve of chopping down a really large tree each year to have a national Christmas tree (they eventually just planted one in 1978).

Did you notice her little dig at about 3:20 that we have the xmas tree, the menorah, and NOTHING, so you are represented. Atheists are nothing.

There is a nice review of the research at Christmas Trees Are Surprisingly Depressing for Some. Non-Christians reported more negative feelings in the presence of a Christmas, while Christians reported more guilt. Most notably, the none of the participants sensed any difference. They were completely unaware of their changes in mood.

My guess is that they might get the same results at Valentine’s Day among those that like the holiday and those that don’t. The bottom line is that one should be mindful of others when decorating the office, as it might have unintended consequences.

Unfortunately, Fox is more interested in a sparring match between David and the world’s biggest idiot, then reporting on an interesting science article.

I have a christmas tree in my house. My wife put an angel on it. I put a krampus ornament on it. Then we put all kinds of star wars, nascar, snowmen, santa clause and even a spongebob ornament on it.

I see David’s point and I appreciate that he is out there bringing attention to atheists. I don’t know that getting christmas trees out of the work place is the best fight though.

Here in Pensacola, FL the county courthouse is decorated for christmas and the winterfest group is holding nightly events there. There are six christmas trees up (if I counted right), a horse and carriage providing rides around the parks, people singing christmas songs in costume, food venodrs and the big man himself is sitting on his sleigh for photographs.

When my wife and I went she gave me the look of “Oh hell, I’m about to hear the church & state the thing again.” When I saw the look I told her “No worries. I’m here to have fun.” and we did! I also noticed that there were no stars, no baby jesus, no nativity, nothing religious about any of the displays. Even the singers skipped the religions songs.

It seems to me that this “war” on christmas was started by those on the right that see this entire holiday season as rightfully theirs and ONLY theirs. The christmas tree goes up every year in my home. My family and I enjoy decorating and watching the kids giggle over the silly ornaments we buy each year. It’s fun. And I’ve never thought of the tree as religious. You could make it that way but then again you could make slavery, prejudice, and discrimination religious to. What? That’s been done already? It’s the same with the greatings. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Festivus. I don’t care how you say it really. If I know you celebrate Kwanza I’ll wish you a merry kwanza. And I’d expect a merry christmas or happy holidays back. If I don’t know what you celebrate I’ll play it safe and wish you a wonderful season of joy and celebration, or happy holidays for short. I wish people would just get over themselves. And I wish my family that know I am an unbeliever would not send grossly religious and proselytizing christmas cards. That really does start to get to me. I get it already, you love your baby jesus and want me to worship the man-god. Sorry, not into, merry christmas anyways. I still set them out, they are my family and I love them and the many cards decorating the house does make the place warm in heart. I do wonder though what would happen if I sent out cards with an direct atheist bent to it. I’m certain there’d be hell to pay come the family gathering!

I just LOOOOVE how she said “Canadian” like it’s a word to scoff at….like she’s thinking…why are we even bothering to talk about this when it was a study done in Canada so is obviously not relevant to us. Like Canadians are less credible or something.
Fuck you Fox news blond bimbo…and you wonder why the majority of Canadians have an anti-American attitude.

PS. I have no problem with the decorated tree. We always had a Christmas tree and it never represented Christianity to me.

@The Godless Monster
Thats nice. You don’t like it, then suck it up or just leave.
It’s not like anybody forces thoose jews to be offended by a swastika or other nazi symbols, they choose to be offended…

Okay admittedly comparing nazism and christmas is a little harsh, but criticising a persons sensibilities is just low. On this site we go after the arguments not the person.

I don’t care about Christmas trees. It’s an extremely secular holiday symbol. We have Christmas trees at the flipping White House. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of divisiveness over Christmas trees. They’re a symbol of peace and good will. I think if people do feel excluded in their workplace it’s only because their Christian workers make them feel excluded, not because they put up a tree.

I kind of completely disagree with Dave here, but that doesn’t make Bill Donahue any less of a monster. “Become a Catholic!” Go to your own imaginary Hell, Bill.

If we’re going to go after something as harmless as Christmas trees now then we should be called grinches. You’ve got to draw the line somewhere. There’s a reason to keep baby Jesus’ version of Christmas out of the work place but why Santa Claus’? Christmas isn’t just becoming secular as Dave said, it’s already there. It’s a major part of Western culture and one I hope we don’t abandon.

Regardless I’m sick of this war on Christmas nonsense dredged up by Fox News. It’s to the point where no one can enjoy the holiday season. The entirety of 2010 has been a year of fighting against reactionary right-wing nonsense and even during the holiday’s we can’t take a break in the fighting.

Happy Holidays. Now shut up and try to enjoy them.

I think that fourth option is perfect for Bill.

Two comments:

1) Dave is making a tactical error here. By arguing for keeping Xmas trees out of the “secular” workplace, it solidifies their religious connotations. He should have gone in the opposite direction and made it clear that a decorated tree is religiously neutral; people can project religious ideas onto one or not, as they choose. As Seth said above, decorated trees are to Winter holidays as pumpkins are to Halloween.

2) I disagree with the idea that the workplace has only one function: to get work done. Workplaces are for many people much more than that; for instance, a great many marriages are between prior workmates. Many spend 40 out of 72 waking hours during the week at work (if they’re lucky), and I think developing some sense of workplace community is necessary, not only for personal well-being but for business success.

Of course it isn’t easy, if not impossible, to develop a workplace culture that is always inclusive and never produces discomfort in any employee. Any such culture would be completely sterile. But I think it’s easy to avoid explicitly religious intrusions; as many have pointed out, a tree is fine, but a manger is not. And sure, some people will be uncomfortable in the presence of a tree, but as long as no preaching comes along with it, no real harm is being done. As we like to say around here, no one has the right not to be offended.

1st Faux News is a xtian outfit and the atheist was there only to give Donny someone to bounce words off….Hitler was atheist…say lies often enough and you can make brain-eaten Xtians believe it.

2nd..When asked anything about Xmas or Easter I always tell them ‘Why yes I take very chance I can to celebrate the great pagan holidays.’

My only problem with the trees at work is they are always placed in the worst spot. They often disrupt traffic flow and are too big for the small spaces I’ve worked in. At one place it was put in the break room and two table were taken out so most of the time we had to eat at our desks or go out.

I’d rather have a small tabletop tree, if any, and other wall decorations that don’t get in the way of work.

The only thing I truly hate are poinsettias. Ugly plants.

Can someone make one thing clear to me?

I got the impression that this was talking about a study about how Christmas Trees in the workplace made many people feel excluded, and Donohue was there to say tough cookies, and Dave was there to explain why people might feel excluded.

But judging by some of the comments here, people seem to be saying that Dave Silverman is going on a crusade to get Christmas Trees out of the workplace.

Did I completely miss something?

I don’t think Dave Silverman is choosing the wrong battles with this, in that I don’t think he chose this as a battle, per se, at all.

As an aside, well done Dave for getting the last word in at the end there. Rather than the clip ending on ‘Hitler was an atheist, and all atheists are like Hitler’ it ended on ‘actually, Hitler was a Catholic – if you don’t believe me read this book he wrote.’ Small victory, but a victory nonetheless imho.

I think the tree is more of a holiday symbol then a christmas specific symbol.

I put up one in my house because it looks nice and makes the house smell fresh, and the lights outside look pretty and make the neighbor kids happy. 🙂

@The Godless Monster
Hmm I think you misunderstood my point, and it was not my intention to cite you falsly. I apologise that my relativly simple statement was open to so strong misintrepatations.

My point with the swastika was to illustrate how it’s not always a volunetary choice to be offended. It was not to claim that you had said so, but to point out that your logic is flawed.
If someone is offended it’s not reasonable to just expect them to either leave or ignore it. Sometimes you have to stand your ground whether it be nazism, prayer in school or even a pagan symbol at the workplace.

I’m not trying to convey that you support nazism or anything like that, I simply disagree with your disposition.

I can definitely agree that religion has no place in the workplace, but there’s nothing wrong with secular holiday symbols. I’d even be fine with the deviously ambiguous “holiday tree.” I wish people like Dave would stop pretending that, to be a proper atheist, you have to eschew Christmas. As if it’s the higher philosophical ground or something. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating a year-end winter holiday of sharing, togetherness, and family…without any of the unnecessary drivel about a star-baby and 3 Chinese guys. I’m an atheist, and I celebrate Christmas with my family. I just don’t subscribe to the religious backstory (or the pagan back-backstory they plagiarized it from). I just subscribe to what it shows as today: a holiday of family, sharing, and togetherness. No one celebrates the original traditions of Halloween, either, and no one complains about that…There is such a thing as secular Christmas, and I think that atheists like Dave making such big noise about being “offended” by it just to prove a point are useless, and they make atheists look like a bunch of Grinches.

“The ‘Vay-Gins’ feel excluded from Thanksgiving!”.

Not in this house!

Silverman made an ass out of himself. He has done very well on other appearances, but that was really horrible.

I almost found myself agreeing with Bill on some of it.

I quite like the tree – but I suppose it will be the attitude of your co-workers that determine how you feel about it. One of our managers(Christian), after the white elephant gift exchange said Have a great holidays , celebrate it in your own ways and traditions – The other a catholic always gives us something but is careful to write Happy Holidays (and to whom I reply Merry Christmas!). I don’t really mind the tree in such an environment.

@cat,

“@Godless monster, yes, because minorities and unpopular groups elect to be offended, whereas majorities and the powerful can’t help it. If I had a nickel for everytime I was told to just get over sexism, racism, cissexism, homophobia, etc, I would be Bill fucking Gates.”

Cry me a fucking river. Your self-righteous wailing is misplaced. I’m a member of one or more of those unpopular minority groups that you weep about. Also, please point out where exactly I stated or implied that one should tolerate ANY of the things you just mentioned.
You can’t because I didn’t write that, nor did I imply that. Like Remus, you just made the shit up. It’s silly to be a looking for a fight where there is no fight to be had and it’s unethical to be making false claims and accusations. At least get your facts straight and please have a point – other than the microcephalic cone on your head, that is.
I also never mentioned that the majority or those “in power” always behave themselves and/or shouldn’t be held accountable for bad behavior. Where in hell did you get that idiocy from?
What the fuck…is there some kind of “take an idiot liar to an internet cafe” holiday today?

I think it’s about high time that Bill Donohue go and hang out with Jerry Falwell in heaven.

I’m interested in hearing his thoughts on extraterrestrial life. Since he mentioned that “Vagans” are excluded on Thanksgiving, I assume he’s talking about inhabitants of Vega. (1:35)

I also learned that astonishingly, EIGHTY percent of America is CHRISTMAS. (1:43) Here I was, not enjoying this December holiday, but it turns out that chances are that I’ve been Christmas this entire time.

But seriously. Bill Donohue is one insurmountable assclown.

Just convert?? Where would this country be today if our Founding Fathers had “just converted” and “gotten over” the exclusion that drove them from the Monarchy to begin with.

This video has my brain spinning circles and my psyche shouting “bullshit!”

People should stop granting FauxNews interviews. Talk about divisive.

I was pretty critical of Dave when he had the debate with 4 people on Fox about the Myth billboard, but I have absolutely nothing to complain about here. Dave did an excellent job. He laid out the simple fact that religion, like politics, strongly divides people, and thus should not be in the workplace. He stayed quiet and let Donohue spout ridiculous rude and obnoxious things that will only serve to hurt his own public image. Convert to Catholicism if you’re feeling like an outsider? Beautiful. Anyone with half a brain watching this would know how arrogant that statement is.

Donohue’s suggests that anyone offended by the tree can 1) get over it, 2) move to another country, 3) convert to Catholicism, or 4) enter an asylum.

So next time Donohue’s offended by something, we can expect him to get over it, move to another country, or enter an asylum? Sweet…

Dan – our waste authority takes Christmas trees and chips them up for mulch that the city then uses and also sells to gardeners. I assume that other places do the same.

I think that a private employer can decorate a place of business to reflect personal interests, values, etc.

That said I believe this study can go a long way to informing employers of the potential results of certain decorating choices. With this information the employers might choose not to act on all aspects of decorating freedom to support and respect staff. It also provides more ammunition to help convince goverments not to undertake such displays.

On another note, with his recent media appearances, Silverman is giving the impression that rather than be a catalyst for change in society he wants to be yet another pundit that the media can wind up when they are short on news.

Why wallow with the likes of Donohue? No one respects his shilling for the limelight and continued association of atheist issues with Donohue aren’t going to win over the undecided or develop more tolerance in the general public, rather we’ll be remarginalized to the fringe of public discourse. If we need to debate catholics on tv let’s get a George Will or George Weigel and have it mean something more than a sideshow.

Lastly, yay Canada for doing interesting research! 🙂

I have two Xmas trees in my house. Just because I believe that religion is a crock doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the decorations of the season!

However, I coulda done without this idiotic blow up ball with a bell in it that has “Jingle With Joy For Jesus” written on it that mom sent me. WTF ever.

anyone who gets offended by Christmas trees should suck it up. When we argue about things as petty as Christmas trees it makes atheists look bad. We should stick to the important issues or else atheists will just have a reputation of being like whinny kids

It’s funny how he stated that Hitler was atheist. Hitler was a Christian, went to church and celebrated Christmas.

He’s right. The workplace should be neutral without any religous bias.

I don’t personally care about Christmas trees. It’s part of my culture anyway, so I’m really not bothered.

But last year, we had a Muslim working in our office. She wasn’t uncomfortable with other people celebrating Christmas, or even decorating the office, but she was clearly uncomfortable with the assumption that she should participate. I actually had to sit down with our office “party planner” to explain that even though she is a Catholic, not everyone is and she needs to be sensitive to that. I explained to her the difference between decorating a tree and putting up a nativity (one is arguably appropriate, the other is not).

It took forever. She just couldn’t understand. She was of the “but but… everyone loves Christmas!” persuasion. She had never heard of Ramadan/Eid and had no idea that our Muslim co-worker had celebrations of her own that are different from hers.

This is living in Canada, in a large, multi-cultural city where you literally cannot walk two blocks (in most neighbourhoods) without meeting Muslims. It was really scary.

She did get it in the end, thankfully. She’s a really nice person and she wanted to make everyone feel welcome, so there was no maliciousness. She just legitimately did not get it. Once she did, she removed all the angel and nativity decorations, and secularised our party games (and stopped asking the poor Muslim what her family was planning to do for Christmas!!).

Decorated evergreens don’t make me uncomfortable, nor secular Christmas songs. Only religious songs do.

Bill Donohue says that people uncomfortable with a Christmas tree in the room need to be institutionalized.

Can we PLEASE make this the highlight of the video? This man is saying that these people (of other faiths? Jews, probably?) all need to be brought together, locked up, to be treated as lesser citizens and institutionalized.

Where does THAT sound familiar? It’s like he’s trying to “concentrate” them now.