The Roselle Park councilwoman who resigned Thursday after the council voted to change the name of the borough’s “Tree Lighting” to a “Christmas Tree Lighting” is now rescinding her resignation. The ceremony will be called a Christmas tree lighting on December 11th, and this point forward, but Councilwoman Storey says this needs to be a topic of conversation, a discussion she will have with the committee moving forward.
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Hokanson said in his statement that the new name for the tree lighting ceremony will remain in place, noting, “Storey still opposes the change”. Storey broke the news to Eyewitness News that she is in fact rescinding that letter of resignation. Changing the name back to include “Christmas”, at least according to Storey, removes non-Christians from the celebration.
Storey said she was raised Catholic but describes herself as a non-believer.
A New Jersey city council’s decision to add the word “Christmas” to the name of its tree-lighting ceremony prompted one council member to step down because it “turned it from a non-religious event to a religious one”.
Based on reports, Mayor Carl Hokanson reached out to Storey.
Other lighting ceremonies around the nation – such as Washington, D.C.’s National Christmas Tree Lighting and New York City’s Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting – have long used the religious word.
Storey also indicated that she was completely caught off-guard about Thursday’s vote, and that the decision seemingly came out of nowhere. After rescinding her resignation, Storey said she still disagreed with the renaming and would not attend the event, according to NJ.com.
‘Yes, Christmas is a cultural holiday as well as a religious one.
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‘I find it hard to accept that to them, a “Christmas” tree is a secular tree, ‘ Storey said. ‘It’s not a holiday tree, it’s not a pear tree – it’s a Christmas tree, and this is the season’.
