Has Anyone Here Renamed the Christmas Tree the Merry Tree?

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To not offend people who are not Christian and presumably make their heads blow up when they heard the word " Christmas"?

Just when I think that victim culture insanity cant possibly get any worse I get proven wrong.

If you do this please give me your best argument for the change.

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Type: Discussion • Score: 12 • Views: 4,734 • Replies: 75

@hawkeye10,

The so-called Christmas tree has nothing to do with Christianity so I think we can all choose to call it whatever we want and be offended by whoever we want.

Or not.

Any Christian who wants to to tell me the fir tree is a Christian symbol can expect to get an earful from me about appropriation.

On the flip side, there is a whole crew of Christians who don't approve of Christmas trees because of their pagan origins.

It's kind of a win-win. Just have to figure out which Christians are which, so I can happily offend all of them.

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@ehBeth,

Sure it is your tree and you can call it what ever you want. If I gave the impression that you have to call it a Christmas tree then I communicated poorly.

Yesterday a hippy-dippy woman I casually know called it a Merry Tree on FB. When I asked her about it she said that " Christmas Tree" is exclusionary and possibly offensive to others ( which I read as " no one has complained but they might") so she will no longer call it that.

She is getting more looney as she ages so maybe it is just her. Hopefully. However she is deep into the Olympia greener leftist scene so I doubt it.

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Speaking for my fellow Druids, we are offended.
Spells have been cast.
I wouldn't get too close to mistletoe if I were you.
Just sayin'.

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My Muslim colleague at work is getting his Christmas tree this weekend. He does not have any issues calling it that.

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My muslim neighbour is have a Christmastree and so does her family and also in Turkey people do have one - simply because it is so nice.

To say that the Christmas tree is not a Christian symbol is getting a bit too far.
When something has been around for hundreds of years and being decorated with Christian symbols for couple of hundred of years you do take it over as a Christian symbol.
At least in Scandinavia the tree started off as an outdoor decoration or as a protection against evil. The lower branches were cut off andput on the ground in front of the entrance.
Around 1400 the tree was taken into the house a German tradition, The written documentary about a tree indoors in Sweden was 1741. The first trees were small and decorated with a candles and apples.
Sweden has always had many wooden and straw figures for decoration the house around Christmas time.

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@contrex,

My wife is Headteacher of an inner city school which has a 75% muslim intake, and they absolutely love everything about our traditional Christmas in the UK.
Mind you, our UK Christmases have very little to do with religion, but we do love our twinkly lights, cheesy bobsleigh songs, shopping, presents, overeating and long wintry visits to the pub, so what's not to like?

We all call it a Christmas tree, as it has always been called that for as long as all us living Brits have lived in the UK, so I'm not about to rename it because it happened to have anothet title or meaning some hundred and fifty or so years ago, before Albert lifted Victoria's underskirts then brought his dastardly German customs over here.

We also bring holly and ivy (and mistletoe) into the house, as a nod to our distant past, but the Christmas tree will always be the Christmas tree, even for the non Christian Brits.

Footnote: My wife's Deputy Head is a young(ish) Sikh, and he goes mad about Christmas, as does his entire family and the rest of his Sikh community.
They rate it almost as highly as diwali in their calendar, and really go to town on house decorations, fireworks and stocking up the cupboards with booze. I have learned over the past few years that Sikhs like to party as much as, and probably more so, than us Brits.

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@Lordyaswas,

Lordyaswas wrote:

Sikhs like to party

Tell me about it. I know a Sikh temple elder who is a regular at a certain pub in an English provincial city who is the life and soul of clubbing expeditions, likes a spliff, chats up girls, etc. I once asked him if he felt uneasy and he said "No, I left my turban in the car.". I also know a group of female friends, corporate lawyers, one Hindu, one Muslim, two Jewish, who first met as students at Macdonalds in Finchley breaking their respective families' diet taboos.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

To not offend people who are not Christian and presumably make their heads blow up when they heard the word " Christmas"?

Just when I think that victim culture insanity cant possibly get any worse I get proven wrong.

If you do this please give me your best argument for the change.

You get proven wrong all the time. Nobody is calling their Christmas tree a merry tree, nobody. As usual you're tilting at windmills.

http://api.ning.com/files/0iQg4JW9T44yhGvjmtYwId8aPn2tpyaIXfug9fKRgH*9x*sGZp8tVbmqb3dKkox6Jnbq4tYXMEV2ctyMFdxOt*idcthScLo9/kbp_detail.gif

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@izzythepush,

He said he met someone who was doing this and asked if anyone else is. It sounds like the answer is mostly no. From the other posts, it sounds like secular Christmas is spreading. I know I have read articles about how Halloween is spreading and even an article about the growth of Thanksgiving celebrations in England.

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@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

As usual you're tilting at windmills.

And/or setting & knocking down straw men (or women!)

hawkeye10 wrote:

Just when I think that victim culture insanity cant possibly get any worse I get proven wrong.

A UKIP bore I am related to says "Just when I think PC [or 'elf-and-safety or the trade unions or whatever] can't go any madder I get proven wrong". Selection bias, I think it's called.

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@engineer,

I've not noticed any Thanksgiving celebrations over here at all. There is the use of "Black Friday" though, with all the festive fighting and arrests.

1 Reply

@engineer,

engineer wrote:

the growth of Thanksgiving celebrations in England.

I don't think Brits really celebrate Thanksgiving in the authentic sense, it would be meaningless, there a fair number of Yank tourists and expats and their entourages who do though. Menus in hotels etc. The tourist industry will do anything to make money. It doesn't mean that Brits care about all that turkey and yam stuff.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Has Anyone Here Renamed the Christmas Tree the Merry Tree?

Not I.

I prefer Xmas, as that was the way Xians referred to the holiday for more than a thousand years.

X, being the Greek "C", used to be the first letter of the world Christ. In addition, the X resembles an alternative form of crucifix.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

. . . X, being the Greek "C", used to be the first letter of the world Christ. . .

"Ch" to be precise, or rather "ch" is the Latin "x".
But I nitpick.

1 Reply

@George,

George wrote:

"Ch" to be precise, or rather "ch" is the Latin "x".
But I nitpick.

It's Latin? I thought it was Greek. (I'm fluent in neither.)

Christ begins with Ch, so that works out OK.

1 Reply

@contrex,

contrex wrote:

I don't think Brits really celebrate Thanksgiving in the authentic sense, it would be meaningless, there a fair number of Yank tourists and expats and their entourages who do though. Menus in hotels etc. The tourist industry will do anything to make money. It doesn't mean that Brits care about all that turkey and yam stuff.

That was the gist of the article I read. Between US expats, friends of expats wanting to celebrate with them and businesses catering to Americans, there has been significant growth of turkey, pumpkins and pictures of pilgrims in grocery store aisles. (I also don't think that many Americans celebrate Thanksgiving in any authentic sense. It's just a holiday to eat and watch football.) The rise of Black Friday internationally also seems to have something to do with it.

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

I've not noticed any Thanksgiving celebrations over here at all. There is the use of "Black Friday" though, with all the festive fighting and arrests.

Absolutely.

Not one single sign of anything related to Thanksgiving in the shops, for which I give thanks.
The so called black Friday or whatever they call it was brought in primarily by WalMarts, who now own Asda (for US peeps, it is a big supermarket chain in the UK), and like you say, it is a retailer/consumer orgy which brings out the worst in the type of people who like a bit of a scrap anyway.

Before this American monstrosity was introduced, we used to have 'Blue Cross' days. Any Brits remember those?
My mates mum, a primary school teacher, used to go into Rugby player mode on those days, but always came home with an unrequired set of cutlery or an equally surplus set of bed linen.

Can any Brit here imagine the absolute awfulness of basically having to go through TWO bingefests on Turkey and booze within a month of each other?

Bugger that for a lark.

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@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

George wrote:
"Ch" to be precise, or rather "ch" is the Latin "x".
But I nitpick.

It's Latin? I thought it was Greek. (I'm fluent in neither.)

Christ begins with Ch, so that works out OK.

I guess I was unclear.
The Greek letter X ("chi") is transliterated "ch" in the Latin alphabet.
Χριστός
Christos

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@engineer,

engineer wrote:

, there has been significant growth of turkey, pumpkins and pictures of pilgrims in grocery store aisles.

Never seen it, not even a glimpse.

(We do have pumpkins during Halloween, but Thanksgiving passes without notice. Maybe in a store catering for American expats, but not anywhere else.)

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Has Anyone Here Renamed the Christmas Tree the Merry Tree?

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