STAFF EDIT: Be mindful during celebrations

It’s that time of the season again. Time for holiday cheer and, more stressfully for many, time to try and find those perfect gifts for those close friends and family members. And time once again for public celebrations of the season. Mayors and citizens will convene on town squares for annual tree lightings and schoolteachers will undoubtedly initiate their yearly Secret Santa gift exchanges. But where should the line be drawn between public endorsement and communal celebration, between establishment of religion and a simple acknowledgment of tradition?

Mayor Thomas Menino helped Boston welcome the holiday season with Boston’s annual tree lighting ceremony at Faneuil Hall Saturday evening. The setting was near the city center of one of the most diverse cities in the world, the home of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddists and many more religions. And yet, lighting the Christmas tree unites Boston, and cities across the country, every year. New York, home to the largest number of Jews outside Israel, has one of the most nationally recognized and publicized Christmas tree lightings yearly at Rockefeller Center, in the middle of Manhattan.

Tree lightings are an American tradition, and the Christmas tree is an essentially commercialized, secular symbol. While some people may take offense to public Christmas celebrations, they have indeed become a tradition that has become embedded in the yearly holiday routines of many towns. Though there are clear problems with these very public showings of what are, at their origin, religious traditions, any attempts to fight them would not be worth the effort they are no longer seen by participants as inherently religious. Fighting the larger intrusions of more fundamentally religious practices, like prayer in school and displays of the Ten Commandments in courtrooms, should be the objects of church/state activists’ efforts.

However, sensitivity should be important during any holiday season. Though the wide majority of Americans do celebrate Christmas, many feel left out of public Christmas celebrations because the holiday is not part of their own traditions. All Americans should remember just how diverse the country is and from just how many different religious backgrounds people come. Though Christmas has become the dominant December celebration, Muslims are in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan, Jews will celebrate Hanukkah next week and a diverse group of people from every background will celebrate Kwanza at the end of the month.

But in the end, people really interested in the religious significance of the winter holidays will find that in the nation’s churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship, not America’s town squares.