Portland Unveils 75-Foot Christmas Tree, Immediately Insists It’s Not a Christmas Tree — Just ‘The Tree’
Portland, Oregon kicked off the holiday season this week with the ceremonial lighting of a 75-foot-tall Christmas tree — though city officials insist residents should not call it a Christmas tree, think of it as a Christmas tree, or associate it with anything even remotely close to Christmas.
“It’s simply ‘The Tree,’ nothing more,” said City Spokesperson Evergreen Bloomfield, reading from a carefully sanitized script. “Please refrain from using exclusionary terms like ‘Christmas,’ ‘holiday,’ ‘seasonal,’ ‘festive,’ or ‘December-adjacent.’ The Tree is a tree, representing treeness in its purest form.”
The crowd gathered around the massive evergreen seemed confused but willing to play along. The Tree was decorated with ornaments, lights, a star-like object at the top that definitely wasn’t a star, and garlands that—while suspiciously festive—were rebranded by the city as “stringed celebration ropes.”
No Christmas music was allowed.
Instead, the ceremonial entertainment included a local activist draped in a Palestinian flag passionately chanting, “Free, free Palestine!” as she paced beneath The Tree, ensuring absolutely no one mistook this event for anything related to peace on earth or goodwill toward men.
Following her performance, another woman serenaded the audience with a selection of “Woman Strong” empowerment ballads, replacing the traditional Silent Night with a rousing rendition of “Hear Me Roar While You Respect My Journey.”
City officials praised the programming as “inclusive, relevant, and entirely unrelated to what anyone came to see.”
Local residents were bewildered.
“I mean… I’m looking right at it,” said Portland native Rob Simmons. “It’s a 75-foot Christmas tree. They can call it a shrub, a fern, or ‘The Great Evergreen of Neutral Expression,’ but it’s still a Christmas tree.”
City leaders quickly dismissed such comments as “fact-based hate speech.”
Bloomfield explained, “If we acknowledge it as a Christmas tree, someone somewhere might experience feelings. We can’t risk that.”
In closing remarks, she reassured attendees that Portland remains committed to celebrating the winter season with no mention of holidays, traditions, joy, faith, or anything that smells even faintly like Christmas.
“We are proud,” she said, “to offer a tree that represents nothing, celebrates nothing, and means nothing — just as nature intended.”
As of press time, city officials were debating whether the lights atop The Tree were “too cheerful” and considering replacing them with low-energy bulbs that emit a soft gray glow of emotional neutrality.
Because someone has to say it.
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