Becket Fund's 2001 Ebnezer Award goes to Kensington, Maryland

Nov 30, 2001

Buckling under to public pressure from two whole families, the town council of Kensington, Maryland drew national attention this week when it declared Santa Claus to be persona non grata at the town tree lighting ceremony scheduled for Sunday, December 2. The council's action has won it The Becket Fund's most undistinguished of honors, the annual Ebenezer Award.

In years past, Santa arrived on a fire truck and helped the mayor light the tree in Kensington. This year, after objections from two families who said Santa's presence would make them feel "uncomfortable," the town council disinvited Santa. When the move drew national media coverage and an avalanche of angry phone calls and e-mails, they raised his status from disinvited to uninvited, hardly enough to avoid being the hands-down winner of the 2001 Ebenezer Award.

Becket Fund President Kevin Hasson observed that "reducing Santa to an uninvited guest is certainly a shame. He deserves better. I do hope Kensington was extra good this year to make up for the slight. Santa's tough, though, and I think he can handle it," Hasson continued. "He's had a lot of practice getting into places when the door's not open to him."

Ironically, the council had the opportunity to make the right decision when it was asked by the objecting families last year to include a Jewish menorah in its holiday display. But instead of doing so, which would have reflected the community's diverse religious traditions in an entirely appropriate way, the council decided instead on a purely secular holiday observance. The Becket Fund has successfully defended Jersey City, and Wall Township, New Jersey against lawsuits by the ACLU that challenged such diverse religious displays.

The Ebenezer Award is a specially designed Christmas stocking filled with lumps of coal, and is given each year to the individual responsible for the silliest affront to the Christmas holiday. Past recipients include Pittsburgh's "Sparkle," a silly-looking creature which was the centerpiece of Pittsburgh's absurdly watered-down Christmas celebration, and Jim Johnson, the city manager in Eugene, Oregon. Johnson won the award for issuing a five page single-spaced memo laying down the law on Christmas trees in Eugene, banning them entirely from any "public space" in the city.

The Town Council of Kensington, Maryland will shortly receive their well-deserved lump of coal, and enter the record books as one of the most deserving winners of the "honor."