Christmas won't be the same in Ashwaubenon, a suburb of Green Bay in the US state of Wisconsin.
An annual event that showcases uniquely decorated Christmas trees and hosted by a museum has come under the spotlight. It does not only feature the traditional Christmas trees, but there are those dedicated to music stores, the trucking industry, pet crematories, health insurance companies, gender diversity, radio stations and behavioral pediatrics. [Note: Each organization that participates sponsors a tree that costs anywhere from $75 to $150 and they can decorate it however they see fit, so long as they don't promote violence, sexual content, and alcohol and drugs].
And among the 66 uniquely decorated exhibits displayed at the National Railroad Museum’s "Festival of Trees" (November 15-December 31, 2023), one tree stands out, really stands out.
This tree is adorned with red ornamental pentagrams and upside-down crosses. And pays festive homage to Beelzebub. It is sponsored by Wisconsin's Satanic Temple – in fact, one of 60 trees with no explicit Christian overtones.
As expected, there were protests but museum CEO Jacqueline Frank brushed them off. "We have six Christian-related groups that have trees up this year, but it's mostly businesses and nonprofit organizations", she told the Green Bay Press-Gazette. "We have everything from a tree with hardware on it, a tea tree, we have a Lego tree. It's a lot of different organizations promoting their business".
She declared that the goal is to be inclusive and “provide dignity for everybody”.
On Facebook, they claim that they consider Satan “more of a literary character we admire and a mascot”.
“Tree decorating is a fun and rewarding holiday tradition with roots in paganism”, a message from the group reads. “We decorated the tree to celebrate our own winter holiday, Sol Invictus, and in the spirit of religious plurality and togetherness with other world religions that have holidays around this time of year”.
As far as Frank is concerned, she will not reject an organization simply because they go against certain values or ways of life, traditional or not.
"There was no hesitation. We're not a religious organization. We focus on trains", Frank insisted. "And honestly, the Christmas tree is used by so many different secular and religious organizations. All we're doing is putting up decoration in that room".
And for good measure, she added that even Jewish and Muslim organizations are more than welcome to apply to be part of the Festival of Trees, even though these religions don't celebrate Christmas.
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