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While the above Los Angeles house looks like any other tackily adorned local shrine to all that is commercial about Christmas, it, like a chimney in which the charred remains of an ill-fated burglar dressed as St. Nick are discovered only after an unlucky family returns from an end-of-year vacation, holds a dark holiday secret: it was decorated by Jewish people. Today's NY Times looks at the cultural strife being caused by one defiant woman's decision to erect life-sized Santa Clauses, inflatable Christmas polar bears, and hosts of wire-frame angels in a largely Orthodox Hancock Park Adjacent neighborhood:

"Some people are so offended, you have no idea," said Mary Loomis-Shrier, who has long erected the giant display on a lovely street south of Hollywood. "But some of my neighbors think it is great. Some of their kids drop their list of toys in my mailbox. I don't care because I love it, and it is my right." [...]

Little girls in long skirts stand across the street and stare at the glittering Santas, some mothers pull their children away, others allow their children to climb about the Santas and compliment Ms. Loomis-Shrier on her creativity.

A neighbor in a duplex across the street, Oren Atias, an Israeli, has been less than supportive, Ms. Loomis-Shrier said. He has come across the street and yelled at her, and said, " 'What kind of Jewish girl puts a Santa in the yard?' " said Ms. Loomis-Shrier and several neighbors who saw the arguments.

"I told him, 'I don't think candy canes have anything to do with religion,' " Ms. Loomis-Shrier said.

We wholeheartedly agree with the notion that candy canes should be viewed as nothing more than a delicious, nondenominational snack to be enjoyed by sweet-toothed children of all faiths during the holiday season, but we're still dismayed by the tension that Loomis-Shrier's love of Christmas is causing. The next time her neighbors want to make a fuss about the animatronic Claus who ho-ho-ho's, "What is this Hanukkah you speak of?" (really, she has one, according to the article) into a microphone, they should remember that they could easily be living a few blocks away, next door to someone with a far more offensively festive flair for lawn decoration.