Ridiculous Controversy of the Week

Last week as I was driving around and listening to the news. There was an item about Boston renaming its Christmas tree to a Holiday tree.

For the past 34 years, the province of Nova Scotia has given a tree to the city of Boston to thank them for their help after the Halifax Harbour explosion in 1917. This year the city decided to call the tree a Holiday tree.

The CBC had an interview with the man who grew the tree. He said that he would rather have thrown the tree in a chipper than see it named a Holiday tree.

I shook my head in disbelief that this would make the national news, since the only controversy here is ignorance. Nevertheless, I awoke this morning to hear that this story isn't dead. Jerry Falwell has piped up as well as other ultra-conservative groups arguing that this is a desecration and that something must be done.

Read a few blogs about it and you will be sickened a just how close-minded the whole thing is. People arguing that it's a "rape of my faith" and that "a menorah shouldn't be renamed to a candle".

It doesn't matter what you call the tree. It doesn't matter if you celebrate Kwanzaa, Eid, Christmas, Hanukkah, or Divali, this time of year is all about one thing: money.

On the same day that this story was at its height, Walmart reported that there over 2,000,000 people were queued up at 5:00am waiting for stores to open. No matter what you call the tree or how many religious services you go to, no one can tell me that December is anything but commercialism.

So as everyone starts thinking about presents and credit card bills, I present two of the best ideas for gifts at this time of year:

1) Make a charitable donation. I suggest charities working in heart disease, Diabetes, and Parkinson's disease since all of these run in my family. I suggest any organization that is completely apathetic towards the name of a tree, or better yet have you considered donating to the "Nugget Fund"?

2) Sign out Library books. This is perhaps the greatest Christmas-spirit gift. Think about the person who is receiving the gift. Think about who they are and what they love. Then go to the library and sign them out a book that feeds that love. It's completely free and after the three weeks, they return the book. If the thought truly is what counts, then no one ought to complain. Plus, when they realize that they've spent $200 on your gift, they really understand the foolishness and idiocy of the commercialization of the holidays. Expensive gifts does not equal love.

Point number two is a sticky one and may be difficult to pull off. If anyone is angry with you about not spending enough money on them, simply ask them why they want gifts at all since the holidays are not "about" receiving gifts, but about religion. If you don't care about the naming of trees or the holiday spirit then why participate in gift-giving at all? If you like the idea and hate the commercialization enact point number 1 or 2. If you are disappointed because you got a library book from me for Christmas, don't be angry that they've renamed the tree in Boston and really read that book since I did put a lot of thought into it.