TMQ adds a voice to the Christmas discussion:

As We Read in the Third Epistle to the Corinthians, the Apostle Said, "Verily, Take Ye a Tree, and Place Onto It Baubles and Little Electric Lights from CVS …":

Last week Sea-Tac International Airport in Seattle briefly removed, then returned to place, all Christmas trees after being threatened with a lawsuit asserting display of the trees without symbols of other faiths violated separation of church and state. (Sea-Tac is publicly owned.) This raises a common misconception that drives TMQ crazy at this time of year -- Christmas trees are not religious symbols! Yes, you put them up at Christmas time. But ornaments on trees, Santa in the chimney, flying reindeer, chuckling elves, stockings by the fire: good luck finding these things in the Bible! (Though several generally accepted translations contain references to unicorns.) Santa is vaguely based on Saint Nicholas, a third-century Greek bishop renowned for his love of giving presents; the Christmas tree probably descends from the 16th century German custom of trimming a tree to celebrate New Year's. Even so, trees and stockings are no more part of Christian theology regarding Christmas than latkes and dreidels are part of Judaic theology about Hanukkah -- all are communal traditions with their antecedents in sociology, not religious belief. Modern observation of Christmas involves two simultaneous events: religious commemoration of the birth story of Jesus and an entirely secular festival of gift-giving centered on a pleasing children's fable about a kindly bearded sorcerer who loves little boys and girls and leaves them presents while they sleep. Airport Christmas trees and similar decorations have nothing to do with religion, everything to do with materialism. Even in modern churches, at this point Christmas celebration is 99 percent secular, 1 percent religious. This does not sit well with some Christians, including me. Be that as it may, Christmas trees and Santa Claus are not religious symbols! Unless for the church of the National Association of Manufacturers.