Dispatches from the War on Christmas: CA senior apartment complex bans Christmas tree.

Newhall, CA- 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 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."
On Tuesday, Tarzana-based JB Partners Group Inc. sent a memo to staff at The Willows senior apartment building demanding they take down Christmas trees and menorahs in communal areas.
"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 doughnuts 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."

The folks over at JP Partners really fucked up this time. You think the Occupy Wall street protesters were a tough bunch to get rid of, imagine two dozen senior citizens with nothing better to do but protest the forced removal of a shitty Christmas tree in the common area of an apartment complex. That is absolutely beyond insane. Unless JB Partners can somehow cut off the supply lines of coffee and donuts that are keeping these brave men and women in the fighting spirit, I could definitely see this protest continuing well into the new year, or at least until Jeopardy starts.

PS- Max Greenis can drop the sob story. I'm sure his grandkids will have much more important questions to ask when they come and visit like, "When are we leaving?"

PPS- I have no problem with Robert Troudeau bringing the troops into this. This is, after all, a war on Christmas.