Since the beginning of The 20th century, many small villages, large cities, medium size towns, and more department stores than you can count with all your fingers and toes have taken it upon themselves to put up public Christmas trees for everyone to enjoy.

In 1948 Macy's Great Tree, Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, or Victoria Square's Christmas Tree.
The National Christmas Tree in Washington DC has been lit each year since 1923 on the South Lawn of the White House. The lighting of the National Christmas Tree is part of what has become a major holiday event for the nation.

OK, so just to get this over with since everyone I see is already asking me: YES, I will go see Saving Mr Banks. And I am sure it will be nice. And as it shows some of the people I remember from my childhood with tremendous respect and affection, specifically Don DaGradi and the Sherman Brothers, and I hope my grampa, I'm sure it will be fun. But I will eat my hat if this review is not right on the mark. What my family's business has done is to dumb down and middle-ify and oversimplify (ok, ok DISNEYFY) so much, and while that has rightly and admirably brought a lot of pleasure--joy even-- to a lot of people who needed it given that life can be hard and pleasure hard to come by, it has also encouraged that most grim and American tendency to gloss over the untidy complexities of life, sometimes at great cost to the lived experiences of many others. Were we as a people, for instance, more inclined to welcome stories involving moral complexity and nuance we might not be so quick to accept the ever increasing and frequent invitations of our presidents to jump in with both feet to "defend our freedom" in far away places we know nothing about at great cost to innocent people who couldn't give less of a shit about our freedom and don't even understand why we think they are a threat to it.

The Huntington Free Library and Reading Room is pleased to announce The East Bronx History Forum will hold its last meeting of the year on Wednesday, 7:30pm December 18th 2013.

The East Bronx History Forum meets to discuss Bronx History and held its first meeting on June 16, 2005. December will be the Forum’s 86th meeting. All meetings are free and open to the public at The Huntington Free Library and Reading Room, located at 9 Westchester Square, Bronx, NY.