All this politeness reminds me of the courtesy we all extend to each
other during the holidays.  I don't like the flaming either.  But it all
boils down to this.  There is a combination of things that we do in
museums, which people always watch out for; they want to know how close
we follow the general norm.  The norm is that this country celebrates the
Christmas season; from Thanksgiving all the way to New Year's (I go as
far as the 6th of January,  Epiphany, because my grandmother said that's
when the Three Magi finally arrived with their gifts for the baby Jesus).
 So we celebrate it, we deck the place out with garlands and wreaths, and
invite people to our museum to celebrate the end of the year, and the
coming of the new year.

Our docent guild has an interesting project, which two or three of the
Presidential Libraries also works on; they have a "Trees of the World"
theme.  They research a country's traditions and kinds of ornaments used,
then they decorate trees reflecting that culture.  The docents love the
project, they prepare for it from February on!   I think they're up to 20
something trees this year.  They also concentrate on the First Ladies and
the Presidents, and have trees representing them.  The docents raffle off
a spectacularly decorated tree and deliver it to the lucky winner.  The
raffle tree is a great draw; proceeds are plowed back into their
Christmas trees project.   A beautiful menorah was brought out about 6
years ago, from one of our docents, and it gets a place of honor in our
"patrons wall."  The Library itself has not  gone as far as placing an
actual nativity in a "public" area (they tried but I said nyet, not in
the permanent galleries), but the docents have decorated the bottom of
the trees with train sets, "Christmas lane homes," and nativity sets.  We
happen to be a private, non-profit institution, so we have more lee way
then a government institution.

The docents have worked on this project since the day we were born!  The
funny thing is that Richard Nixon was a Quaker, and when he was a
youngster, his family never celebrated Christmas as we know it.  His
birthplace is on site, and you won't believe the hell I get every year
about why Olivia doesn't want Christmas decor in the Birthplace.  It
wasn't historically accurate!  But go ahead and deck permanent galleries
with Christmas trees, that's about the best compromise I can allow.  Mrs.
Nixon loved the holidays, and to her we owe having the family's ornaments
in the collection, which we dutifully bring out each season to decorate
the Nixon's family tree.

>From the marketing side, people love to come see the decorations and the
trees.  They expect it, and we comply.  And it doesn't hurt attendance,
and I am not being sarcastic; the community really rallies behind the
Library in it's efforts to spread goodwill in this fashion; we have a
tree lighting ceremony which is well attended by families, sometimes
Santa is accompanied by Mickey Mouse or Goofy (depends on how early the
marketing people were able to pull that off).

I am extremely pleased to read about people's knowledge of the historical
aspects of how Christmas came to be.  We did a great "Victorian
Christmas" exhibition last year and I read all about the beginnings of
these celebrations, from the clerics trying to pick a good day for
Christ's birth and make it conform to some all get-out Roman celebration.
 We found some great turn of the century toys, German trees, and personal
items and toys from Victorian-era First Families; we decorated with
garlands and wreaths made of plain evergreens, then we added apples,
roses and other flowers (all quite synthetic for the gallery).  We had
fun, and it showed, because people loved the show.  I discovered that
many of the gifts to children were of educational value or had
functionality to them, very different from today's techno gizmos.  But I
am losing myself here.

In the old days (in this country), before President Benjamin Harrison set
up a tree for his grandson Baby McKee in the White House, the big day was
New Year's.  Even now, the Greeks don't celebrate Christmas day with the
same enthusiasm that they do on New Year's (cuz that's when St. Basil
shows up with gifts).  In Mexico, children don't get their toys until the
6th of January!  (Staying at Grandma's, boy was I bewildered when Santa
didn't show up on the evening of December 24, and I had to wait until
January 6; that was a hard lesson for me and my siblings).

The funny thing about people is that if they feel uncomfortable about
something, they will not come visit you no matter what.  How to put this
delicately, hummm.  Okay, we have a hard time attracting democrats,
because RN was not (and all the other baggage).  People will find an
excuse or a reason for anything, and you might think that you're in the
majority about your feelings on old tired religious ideas and symbols,
but there is a big Silent Majority out there, and you can't cut them out
either.

We all follow very different traditions, we celebrate birthdays or name
days, we ignore religious holidays or we go nuts about them.  We are all
entitled to our opinions, our beliefs, our traditions; if your parents or
grandparents celebrated Christmas to the hilt, perhaps it soured you.  Or
perhaps not.  We blame God for a lot of things, and we turn away when
things don't go the way we want to.  Go ahead and stick to your guns if
you don't think too much of religious holidays, and be content with that.
 In this country, you can celebrate or you can ignore holidays.  As for
me, I can't wait for Christmas!


O



On Sat, 22 Aug 1998 17:56:13 GMT "John A. Bing" <[log in to unmask]>
writes:
>On Fri, 21 Aug 1998 18:08:25 -0500, you wrote:
>
>>>      But would you really say (and I'm not being sarcasitc) that
>the
>>>      Christmas tree as we know it today is a Christian symbol?  If
>so,
>>why?
>>>
>>Really, John, yes it is.
>>It may be a relic from a pagan era, but has been appropriated by the
>>majority of members of a dominant religion. Call it an X-mass tree,
>it =
>is
>>still not a symbol of X-ianism.
>>
>>No more, or it may be percieved as getting ugly.
>
>        To me, this last comment touches on, what I think, is the most
>destructive of all aspects of this subject.  The intolerance of others
>(and I DO NOT take the above as an example)  who don't share your
>religion and demands that religion be so separated from public life
>that it gives the impression that religion is wrong and bad.  Any
>review of history reveals religion as an integral part of man's social
>being.  History will also show that man has fought innumerable wars
>over (or in the name of) religion.  The shame of it all is that all
>this energy is spent on intolerance of others, an attitude that only
>spawns revenge and retaliation and, worst of all, a degrading of life,
>morals and community.
>
>Now, and as the previous writer hinted,  I should stop before I get
>flamned for even raising the subject.
>

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