I wanted to take a moment in my column to extend my warmest regards to our recently-retired Principal Assessor, Jim Pettengill. Jim retired last month after over a decade of service in Westfield’s top assessing position. Jim was well respected within the assessing community for his wealth of knowledge and his unique, wry sense of humor, and he always had the “must read” posts on the Massachusetts Association of Assessing Officers blog. He also gave memorable presentations in front of the Westfield City Council, and it actually allowed us to look forward – at least a little bit anyway – to the otherwise typically stultifying annual tax shift presentation. I may be biased, but I think Jim’s presentation might just have been among the best in the Commonwealth. He will be missed.
And now congratulations are in order to Robin Whitney, who has been promoted from within the Westfield Assessors’ Office to be the city’s new Principal Assessor. Robin beat out a talented field, including local resident Barbara Miller, who is the Director of Assessing in Montague. I have every confidence that Robin will be able to step right in and pick up where Jim left off.
As for the holiday season: I received a strange solicitation from a company last week via e-mail. It urged me to “Order by tomorrow to ensure delivery by the Holidays!”
Holidays? Plural?
Sure, there are multiple holidays celebrated in December. Guess I didn’t realize they would all be on December 25 this year! Or perhaps maybe the retailer didn’t? Although Boxing Day is December 26, as usual, and Kwanzaa begins that day, Hanukkah commenced at sundown on the eighth, which was the same day the e-mail was sent. Boy that would be some speedy shipping, although no matter how fast they tried, the retailer was going to miss Saint Nicholas’s Day, which had occurred earlier in the week on the sixth. However, for any Mayans who might be in the reading audience, rest assured that your gift will arrive for Solstice delivery prior to the 21st; however, gift returns just might be a little difficult after that date this year….
I read with dismay where Governor Lincoln Chaffee went to great pains to call the annual illumination of the tree at the Rhode Island State House the lighting of the “Holiday” tree. While it’s true the Catholic Church didn’t embrace the idea of a Christmas tree until Pope John Paul II introduced it to the Vatican in 1982, it has become an annual tradition since. The practice of celebrating with evergreens transcends the European, Druid, and Roman cultures all of the way back to Egyptian times. American association with Christmas most likely initiated with the Hessian troops quartered here during the Revolutionary War, and speculation is that those troops had engaged in a little too much Christmas spirit around the evergreens on December 25, and were easy pickings for Washington’s troops the next day. While the tradition of a Christmas tree was slow to catch on at first – and banned by the Puritans in New England – by the 20th century, the practice was commonplace in American culture.
After the Halifax Harbor explosion in 1917, the city of Boston was first on the scene with relief and aid. As a token of thanks, the city shipped the city of Boston a Christmas tree, a tradition they revived in 1971 and have followed every year since. The forty-foot-plus tree from our good friends and neighbor to the north in Nova Scotia is displayed every winter on the Boston Common, and is the city’s official Christmas tree. One wonders how our friends up north might feel if Mayor Menino suddenly decided their gift should be renamed a “Holiday” tree?
So my question for the Governor: if it’s not a Christmas tree, than which other holiday does it purport to represent? The leading symbol of Hanukkah is the menorah; Boxing Day derived its name from the box of gifts sent home with employees on the day after Christmas. Saint John’s Day is represented by a feast, while Saint Nicholas is best known for his miter and crozier, and Kwanzaa is represented by a place setting with candles. No trees here…
Fortunately, in my tenure as a city councilor, we’ve by and large avoided some of these extraneous discussions, most recently skirting the issue of whether a corporation should be considered as an individual under state and federal law. It’s amazing though how other public officials seem to find time to wander into these morasses of political correctness.
So in the spirit of the season: Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, and of course Happy Boxing Day to our neighbors to the north. And on behalf of myself and all of my colleagues on the Westfield City Council, to all of friends, neighbors, and fellow residents, Merry Christmas.
Christopher Keefe
President
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not the staff, editor, or publisher of the Westfield News.
