Dear Mr. Weiss,

museums are expected to care about the historic authenticity of displayed
objects. They should present and explain them to the visiting public
accurately and truthfully.
Often a first superficial glimpse at them can deceive and distract us from
their inherent cultural and more complex historic layers of significance.
Museums should try to fulfil their task by showing the history of their
development and their changing perception during the centuries.

World history did not start with the discovery of the Americas and not all
culture phenomena can be explained with the privilege of "being unmistakably and
instantly recognized the minute it is seen by anyone born in this country."
(quote).
I was born in Europe and can i.e. recognize that the NSDAP (German Nazi
Party)tried hard to change peoples Christian beliefs towards what they thought
were more akin pagan, nordic religious rites. Celebrating "labour day" on
the first of May became a dance of girls dressed up as Walkueren around the
"Maypole" (often a birch tree), the same was done on summer solstice and
Christmas was officially celebrated in the "Third Reich", as
"Deutsche Weihnachten", which meant without the crucifix but with candle
lit conifers. During the twelve years reign in their new "Thousand Year
Empire" the Christian use of a star to mark the day of birth and a cross
for the day of death of a person, as can be seen on tombstones and in
newspaper ads, was replaced by using Viking runes.
The star of David was neither put on tombstones nor in newspaper ads, it
had to be carried as a distinction mark on the clothes until their carriers
were massacred and thrown in unonymous mass graves. The fir was clearly
considered a heathen symbol and was strongly promoted by the Nazis to weaken
the hated religious "Christian-Judaic" (as they defined it) connotations and
traditions with the winter solstice. Reintroducing pagan by eradicating
slowly Christian and bruskly Judaic symbols was done all in a few years time
and only god knows how long it would have taken them to create a country
free of religious symbols had they won the war.

Yes, Christian churches took symbols from older religions as the mitre
(from the Egyptians), the tree (from the Germans) and many others still.

Hiring a fancy car (a Rolls here, or as I saw it in the U.S.: an
unbelievably disproportunate white stretched limousine) may add some glamour
and glitz to a wedding of whatever (non-) religious creed. But it doesn't
necessarily tell you anything about the (non-) religious beliefs of the
wedding couple. It is not inherent to the wedding. After some hours it will
be returned to the rightful owner and the new wed couple must make it without
borrowed symbols. They will have to rely on their own (hopefully) authentic
convictions. I think the same applies to the "borrowed" fir at X-mas time.
It is not more than a strong (and therefore succesful) symbol to add to the
religious celebration of Christ's birth.

At this point I might even postulate an even more hazardous speculation on
the origin of the "Germanic" X-mas tree, by further pre- dating it and
hypothesizing (without a chance of proving it) that it is a Germanic adaptation
of the regal (a new king of the Jews was born)Egyptian obelisk symbol, which
was introduced to southern Germany (a region of large fir woods) through the
contact with the Roman culture's transmutation of it (the obelisk) by the
widespread ornamental use of cypresses in Italy around graveyards at the time
of Christian conversion.

It is our privilege to be allowed to speculate and to gain intellectual
insight into these intermingled interactions and dependences of culture,
history, anthropology etc., and we should refrain from interpretative fast
shots and final solutions based on "instant recognition by anyone born in
this country".

Yours sincerely,

Thoral Eppen