Capitol Christmas Tree Honors Obama, Not Jesus

This year’s Capitol Christmas Tree (a 63-foot Sierra White Fir) came from the Stanislaus National Forest in Tuolumne County, California, on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The state that sends the tree in any given year chooses the theme for the ornaments it will bear. The theme for this year’s ornaments is “California Shines.” People from that state create the ornaments and donate them to the US government. Among the prominently displayed ornament is one honoring President Barack Obama, but includes no ornaments visible to persons standing near the tree’s base that uses the word “Christmas,” or includes an image of the Nativity, or bears the name or image of Jesus Christ. Here are two examples of ornaments: one says, “I ♥ President Obama,” and a lone religious ornament cites Psalm 19, a Biblical book from the Old Testiment. Other ornaments include those honoring Disneyland, Hollywood, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

When asked about an ornament policy, the office of the Architect of the Capitol, which is responsible for the tree, said that it does not have a policy nor any restrictions concerning the themes for the ornaments that go on the tree, nor did the office respond to the question of whether any other elected official is mentioned on any ornament hung on the tree.

From Adam Taxan, we get, “Jewish Culture Examiner is quite comfortable in his tries-to-be-observant Judaism … comfortable to an extent that he has no problem with Christians observing Christmas or with calling the U.S. a Christian nation (which has treated its Jewish citizens quite well)… unlike the case for all too many left-wing/secular/ACLU-type/ADL-type Jews who largely define their own Judaism via their antipathy toward Christianity.”

From the Christmas tree web site (no kidding) only two of the fifteen finalist art works mention Christmas, and NONE mentioned Jesus.