Word: communally
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...Christmas tree a "communal" symbol? I certainly don't think so. After all, you can't expect a Jew from New York to overflow with "holiday spirit" when confronted by a 15-foot fir bedecked with glittering tchochkes. In fact, the tree in the dining hall of my own house, Leverett, makes me rather uncomfortable. Does that mean I am not a part of the Leverett community...
...sure, Harvard's houses are far from public institutions, and they need not be governed by the same legal clauses that separate church and state. Still, the houses are communities in and of themselves, and dining halls are communal areas within them...
...same reason we should separate church and state in the realm of the American political community, we should separate religion from the communal sphere of our houses...
Just as the United States is not a Christian nation, I hope that our houses are not Christian houses. When a Christmas tree is characterized as a communal symbol, not only am I excluded from the community, but the community adopts a Christian symbol as its own, identifying the community as a Christian...
...want to be the Grinch. I don't relish the position of condemning other students' religious practices. But by putting their tree--"X-mass," Christmas, Holiday, or whatever you call it--in my dining hall, those students are forcing me to confront the ideology of Christian communal identity three times...