Santa Claus is still welcome in college towns.
After the president of Florida Gulf Coast University banned holiday decorations from campus last week, he received so much backlash from employees that he reversed the decision six days later.
President Wilson G. Bradshaw wrote in a Nov. 26 campuswide memo that the ban was made in an effort "to achieve a difficult balance" with various beliefs among FGCU employees.
UF's own holiday traditions, which were originally developed in accordance with Christian belief, aim to accommodate the diversity of the campus crowd.
UF spokesman Steve Orlando said UF has no ban on its holiday traditions.
UF's holiday festivities began at a private fraternity party in 1929, when Dean Walter J. Matherly performed a reading of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" at the Sigma Nu Fraternity.
The reading grew into a campuswide event and moved to the University Auditorium in 1957, according to UF records.
The reading ceremony joined Christmas on Campus, a tradition that started in 1949 and is today known as Sounds of the Season. The original program, which narrated Christ's birth, was interspersed with musical pieces from Florida's Choral Union.
Sounds of the Season, also performed in the University Auditorium, features seasonal music from various cultures.
In 1957, the wife of then-UF president J. Wayne Reitz suggested there be a Christmas tree-lighting procession outside of the auditorium. When the cedar tree became too large to decorate in 1987, the ceremony was moved to the fir tree on the Reitz Union North Lawn, said Joyce Dewsbury, special collections coordinator of Smathers Library.
It doesn't take much to deck UF's halls these days.
Eddie Daniels, Reitz Union executive director, said decorations take about an hour and a half to set up, and about $30 was spent on holiday decorations this year to replace the bulbs for the tree lighting.
Orlando said garlands wrapped around the Union's staircase banisters and tree lights may be associated with Christmas tradition, but they are meant to carry a general holiday feeling.
"It happens to be the one that many people identify with at this time of year," he said. "You don't see signs that say 'Merry Christmas.'"
