Seniors decry ban on Christmas tree in their complex in Newhall

Residents in a Newhall senior apartment complex are protesting an order from management to remove their beloved Christmas tree from the community room because, they were told, it's a religious symbol.

On Tuesday, Tarzana-based JB Partners Group Inc. sent a memo to staff demanding they take down Christmas trees and menorahs in communal areas.

The company has owned The Willows for four years, but this is the first time it's given such a directive to staff.

On Wednesday, two dozen residents in the 75-resident complex gathered in the lobby to place a neon green sign that read: "Please Save Our Tree."

"We're all angry. We want that tree," said Fern Scheel, who has lived at the complex for nearly two years. "Where's our freedom? This is ridiculous."

Max Greenis who has lived at the complex for a year with his wife, Bonnie, said he's considering withholding his rent in protest of what he calls an abomination of the holiday tradition.

"I've got grandkids and they come here and now they'll ask, `Grandpa, where's the Christmas tree?' Then I'll have to explain that someone said we couldn't have one. What kind of message is that sending to the kids?" Greenis asked.

After the protest - really more of a gathering over coffee and dougnuts to angrily air their concerns - some residents got so riled that they began taking the tree apart themselves. Some even took parts of the artificial tree back to their apartments in defiance.

"For some folks this is the only Christmas tree they'll have all season," resident Robert Troudeau said. "There are people overseas fighting for our freedoms and dying and we're here fighting over things like this. It's a shame."

Christmas Kinematics:
There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan)religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau). At an average census rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each.

Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000 th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second—3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set(two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousands tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds.

Even granting that the “flying” reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can’t be done with eight or even nine of them-—Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).
600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each.

In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds,would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g’s.

A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

Therefore, if Santa did exist, he’s dead now.

Merry Christmas and Good Luck.

The local congressman, Buck McKeon, had a few words to say about this affair:

“This is an absolute outrage and another example of a sad, sad trend I see happening in America today.”

“In Congress, rules prohibit us from sending out any official form of communication to our constituents wishing them any sort of religious happy holiday greeting. We can’t say, Merry Christmas, we can’t say Happy Hanukkah, we can’t say anything that even alludes to a religious celebration or specific holiday greeting. We can’t even use the colors red and green.”

“On Monday night hundreds, of people gathered on the Capitol lawn as we lit the Capitol Christmas Tree, and tonight, millions will watch as the President lights our National Christmas Tree — a tradition of spirit and unity we have enjoyed for 90 years. Are these great American holiday traditions next to go?

I understand that freedom of religion is a founding principle of our democracy, and that part of that freedom is the freedom to not believe in or practice a religious faith. But an abolition of every marker of the holiday season, no matter the religious affiliation, is an affront to our most sacred traditions and darkens what is supposed to be a time of thankfulness, giving, togetherness, peace, love, hope and reflection.

These residents pay rent to a private entity and should have the freedom to practice the holiday traditions of their choice.”

Seniors save Christmas tree at apartment complex in Newhall

NEWHALL - The Christmas tree is back.

A day after residents in a Newhall senior apartment complex protested what they said was an order by management to remove a Christmas tree from their community room because it was a religious symbol, the property operators said the tree could stay. In fact, they chalked it all up to a miscommunication.

As of Thursday afternoon, a tree was standing in the community room, lit, ready to be decorated - and monitored by a security guard to ensure it stays up.

"We accomplished what we set out to do," said a defiant Marjorie Lenenberg, who has lived in the complex for four years. "It's gotten to the point where they hired a security guard."

The story of the senior effort to save their Christmas tree caused a national Internet uproar, with social media sites and messages from people blaming everyone from atheists to progressive to a war on Christmas. The story got more than 600,000 page views on the Daily News website - the most ever for a single story in one day on the site - and was passed around on Facebook and other social media at a rapid pace. Dozens of people from around the country also called and emailed the paper, as well as the apartment complex itself.

"This is ridiculous," said Mary Ward, of Memphis, Tenn., who called the Daily News. "A decorated tree is not a religious symbol. Now if it was a Nativity Scene, maybe they can say it's religious. But it's a tree." Residents at The Willows senior complex said the management sent a memo to staff on Tuesday ordering them to take down Christmas trees and menorahs in communal areas.

One resident told the Daily News Wednesday that she'd spoken to a property supervisor, who told her the tree had to be taken down because it was a religious symbol.

But employees of JB Partners Group Inc., which manages The Willows, insisted Thursday there was no prohibition on Christmas trees or menorahs in communal areas.

"We think it was someone who heard something, and that someone told someone else and that person then told everybody," said Monica Morones, from JB Partners Group, Inc.

Morones was at the Newhall site on Thursday to handle media inquiries and angry calls from people across the country, who said they were upset when they heard that the tree was to be taken down.

"The phones have been ringing all day," she said. "I just received a call from someone who said it was a constitutional right for them to have the tree. I said they were right. We place our residents first."

It's not clear that the company held the same position a day earlier. The company had declined repeated requests for comment from the Daily News and other media on Wednesday when the senior protest was first held.

The story attracted the attention of Christmas tree lovers from New York and Louisiana to Colorado and Alaska, all outraged that the beloved tannenbaum would be such a point of contention during this holiday season.

Karen McCormick of Tampa, Fla. was so moved that she said she wants to start a Christmas card campaign for the residents at The Willows, while many planned to bombard JB Partners Group, Inc. with angry emails.

Even Congressman Buck McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, chimed in on the issue.

"This is an absolute outrage and another example of a sad, sad trend I see happening in America today," said McKeon in a statement, adding that in Congress there are rules prohibiting government leaders from sending their constituents religious happy holiday greetings.

"An abolition of every marker of the holiday season, no matter the religious affiliation, is an affront to our most sacred traditions and darkens what is supposed to be a time of thankfulness, giving, togetherness, peace, love, hope and reflection. These residents pay rent to a private entity and should have the freedom to practice the holiday traditions of their choice."

Another manager, who refused to give her name, said earlier in the day that the original tree was vandalized. Another tree was put up, and that was taken from the community room Wednesday evening. Thursday's tree was the third one put up, which is why the security guard was brought in.

Willows managers planned a party Thursday evening, so that residents could decorate the newly installed tree. A menorah was placed on a table while Christmas garland was also placed in the community room.

"We got our tree back and we're happy, but I'm upset we had to go through all this," said Dora Hadnot. "It's Christmas. A tree means Christmas. It's the season of giving and it's about showing kindness to one another."

"We probably won't be allowed to sing Christmas carols," another resident said.

"If not, that'll be our next fight," Lenenberg said.

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