Two Maine moms at center of national Christmas debate

SCARBOROUGH – While many Mainers were busy getting ready for the holidays, two Scarborough women were busy getting their 15 minutes of fame – and then some – for their efforts to put the Christmas back into the holiday season.

Lynn Mistretta and Lisa Lowry spent the days leading up to Christmas Eve juggling calls from radio talk shows, national newspapers and cable networks.

It turns out their efforts to keep the Christmas theme from being verboten in Scarborough’s public schools struck a nerve in the bigger debate over how the country should observe the Christian holiday.

The issue pits “Merry Christmas” against “Happy Holidays,” religious celebrations against secular observances. Add an evangelical Christian movement emboldened by the re-election of President Bush, and the interview requests were sure to follow.

“These women have great timing,” said Mark Kelley, a broadcast journalism professor at the University of Maine.

The women had no intention of getting into the middle of the nation’s so-called “culture wars.” They just decided it was time to do something in their own community after attending last year’s holiday concert at Scarborough Middle School. The concert featured a medley of Hanukkah and winter songs, but no Christmas tunes.

“We saw each other after the band concert and said, ‘This is it,”‘ Lowry said.

Mistretta went to the administration in September. She asked that Hanukkah and other celebrations stay in school but wanted Christmas included as well.

School superintendent William Michaud saw the issue as a delicate balance between recognizing and respecting Christmas while not promoting any one religion. After hearing from parents, he found a lack of communication in the district about a 2002 policy regarding how teachers were supposed to handle the holiday. Michaud explained the school’s rules to administrators and teachers, and Lowry and Mistretta noticed a change.

This year, a rabbi and minister talked jointly to classes about the religious meaning of Hanukkah and Christmas. A Christmas tree went up in the cafeteria at Wentworth Intermediate School. Overall, it never became a contentious issue in Scarborough.

Mistretta, a lawyer, and Lowry, wife of a minister, said they never thought the issue would be aired beyond Scarborough.

But for cable news networks and talk radio, the way schools, stores and other public places mark Christmas continues to be a popular topic, making Lowry and Mistretta sought-after guests. Radio shows in Florida, California, Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Colorado have come calling.

A producer from Court TV’s “Catherine Crier Live” called. Fox News scrambled to find a studio in Maine for a satellite feed. And The New York Times shared their story with more than 1.6 million readers last Sunday.

Now that Christmas has arrived, they hope the media attention will die down.

“I hope we are a flash in the pan,” Mistretta said.