Unadorned, but not for long, this year’s holiday tree awaits its big moment in the courtyard of the Dublin House restaurant on Monmouth Street earlier this week.
One of the biggest, and certainly the jolliest, events of the year returns to Red Bank for its 16th edition Friday evening.
We’re talking about the hard-to-name series of mini-spectacles that begin with a Santa Claus-accompanied train ride into town, gather steam with a parade down Monmouth Street, go all sparkly with downtown tree lighting and culminate with the chummiest R&B-inflected outdoor holiday singalong money can buy.
And it’s all free.
Presented by Red Bank RiverCenter, the centerpiece Holiday Express concert kicks off at the corner of Broad and Canal streets, opposite Red Bank Catholic High, at 7p.
Joining bandleader Tim McLoone and his sprawling orchestra onstage will be the cast of Two River Theater‘s upcoming production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, offering a taste of the musical that opens December 15.
Here’s the sked:
4:30p: Santa & Mrs. Claus arrive at the Little Silver Train Station where they’ll be available for pictures.
6:25p: Train leaves Little Silver
6:26p: Train arrives at Red Bank
6:30p: Parade down Monmouth Street, passing the Christmas tree in the Dublin House Courtyard
7p: Holiday Express concert begins Broad Street,
Approx. 8p: Santa Arrival/Town Lighting
9p: Concert Ends
Broad will be closed between Harding Road/ Reckless Place and Monmouth Street will be closed to vehicular traffic from 4 to 11p.
Here’s a bunch of pix from last year’ edition of this event.
so it is not a Christmas tree?
Looks like a christmas tree to me..I never heard of a holiday tree before.
Pine trees have been Christmas trees did not spread beyond Germany until the 19th century. By the 1850s, the custom had overcome objections to its pagan origins, and became popular in the U.S.
So decorated pine trees have been associated with the winter solstice for hundreds of years, and have only been associated with Chistmas for about 200 years, since Christain churches co-opted pagan rituals associated with the solstice.
These politically correct people who insist on calling it a “Christmas tree” really get my goat. Let’s call it what it really is: a solstice tree.
SORRY IN MY FAMILY ITS A CHRISTMAS TREE YOU CAN CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT….BUT DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO CALL IT….
red bank old timer,
I’m all for tolerance. Let’s all let each other call our pine trees whatever we want.
AMEN
Looks like a Christmas tree to me too.
IT IS A CHRISTMAS TREE. MERRY CHRISTMAS,
MERRY CHRISTMAS, MERRY CHRISTMAS
I vote Christmas tree. Let’s leave the goat out of this.
Dan,
I can buy the claim that Christmas Trees have only been around for a century or two, but what source do you have that:
a. there is continuity between Christmas Tree practice and whatever the purported pagan practice was?
b. the pagan practice itself was more than a few generations old itself?
c. the pagan practice was in honor of the solistice? or was even semantically coherent at all?
And why did the Christmas Tree practice somehow not exist until it succeeded in “leaving Germany”?
And why does it matter when it was “accepted”?
And whose rule is it that Christianity has to invent its own unique pragmatics instead of sacramentalizing remnants of the existing world, especially considering its intention of reforming that same world?
And doesn’t your line of reasoning suggest that quarters are really denarii since the U.S. government has only been around a few hundred years while the Romans were using coinage two hundred years ago?
A.B.,
a. Yes. In fact, in places where people began to put pine trees in their houses in December, many Christians at first objected to the use of the tree, because they recognized it as a pagan ritual.
b. Jeremiah 10:2-4: “Learn not the way of the heathen…for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold….” That’s about 625 years B.C. The Greek Adonia tradition would have been at least that old, too.
c. Yes. In a variety of cultures, bringing evergreens into the home was part of the solstice ritual.
Here’s a well-researched article on the subject: http://www.orlutheran.com/html/chrtree.html
My point is that currently in this country, pine trees decorated in December are now frequently called “holiday trees.” 100 years ago, they were called “Christmas trees.” 200 years ago, there was no such tradition in this country, so they would just have been called “decorated trees,” I guess.
Of course we don’t call quarters denarii. And in 100 years, when we’re not using coins any more, I won’t insist that we still call 25 cents “a quarter.”
My point is that there is no basis for saying that “Christmas tree” is right, and “holiday tree” is wrong. In our house, we put up a “Christmas tree.” At the Dublin House, it’s a “Holiday tree” (perhaps because a pine tree is not an Irish Christmas tradition?).
I vote for “Holiday Conifer” myself (tongue in cheek of course). This country’s (largely deist) forefathers sought to ensure freedom of religion, so for those who are offended by and intolerant of Christianity (and their self-hating, spineless, politically correct enablers), lug the baggage of your intolerance elsewhere.
For the vast majority who welcome truth in all it’s guises, please accept the blessings of Christ from a practicing Catholic. I will happily accept blessings of any denomination in return.
Merry Christmas.
Pension man, back at ya.
May Poseidon offer you all calm seas and a safe voyage!
Did the town get DEP permission to cut down that tree? LOL. It’s a great tree!
Wishing everyone a happy hoilday!
I would like to thank the majority of you in remembering to call it a Christmas Tree. It is a symbol of the season to remember the birth of my son Jesus Christ your savior. Christ as in Jesus, Mas as in the Mass of rememberence of his birth equals Christmas. Since everyone seems to agree that this tall green thing is a tree it must be a Christmas Tree. I hope everyone had a Very Happy Thanksgiving and remembered to thank me. Make sure to make pleanty of donations this holiday season including my churches. It has been a rough year on many including our churches. I do not want to have to be a grinch and layoff priests next year. God Bless!
I think I saw God eating a slice at Mr. Pizza Slice. Steve was yelling at him for not clearing his table.
Mr Pizza Slice is my favorite due to all the good Catholics that frequent the establishment. Their RBC parents are also big, big givers on Sunday.
Dear Fake God,
I will strike you down if you disrespect me again. There is only one God and that is me. Maybe you can be Buda, a Priest, or Rabbi but you can never be Me. Repent your sins and go to the nearest church and empty your wallet there immediately.