The University of Mississippi is the latest taxpayer-funded school to forbid the word “Christmas” over concerns that it may offend someone.
This year, school officials rechristened its yearly event called “A Grand Ole Christmas” as “Hotty Toddy Holiday,” reports Campus Reform.
The “fun-filled evening celebrating a Hotty Toddy Christmas” was last week. There was a “tree lighting” — but not a Christmas tree lighting. (RELATED: Atheist Democrat Quits Town Council Over Words ‘Christmas Tree’)
The non-Christmas event also featured a visit by notable Christmas personage Santa Claus as well as hot chocolate, pizza and ice skating.
Acting chancellor Morris Stocks and a second administrator, Brandi Hephner LaBanc, made appearances.
“We really wanted to, uhh, kinda like, change the atmosphere from last year and that would explain the name change,” Student Activities Association spokesman Kayp Maye told The Daily Mississippian. “‘Grand Ole Christmas’ was just — it connoted too much Christianity on campus and so we wanted to have a more inclusive environment for the holidays this year.”
Maye said the plan was also to attract “a more mature audience” with a red, blue and silver color scheme.
Another method the organizers used to attract this more mature audience was an offer of pictures with Santa. And there was a woman dressed in sad, flimsy gingerbread man costume hawking “free hot chocolate” as she held a wrinkled sign along with her cellphone.
The name “Hotty Toddy Holiday” relates to the “Hotty Toddy” chant which Ole Miss football fans yell ubiquitously — and ad nauseam — during football tailgating. The mantra goes: “Hotty Toddy, Gosh almighty. Who the hell are we, Hey! Flim Flam, Bim Bam. Ole Miss, by damn!”
The University of Mississippi is most famous, of course, because a 5’6″ man who weighs an estimated 250 pounds went around campus exposing himself to women last year. (RELATED: A Short, Fat Flasher Is On The Loose On The Campus Of Ole Miss)
In 2013, officials at the public school decided to force all students who attended a play about murdered gay student Matthew Shepard to attend a re-education session because a few unidentified audience members disrupted the performance by voicing anti-gay slurs and laughing at the wrong times. (RELATED: Ole Miss Forces Whole Play Audience Into Re-Education Camp Over Mysterious Gay Slurs)
Last month, police officers hired by Ole Miss allegedly beat up a U.S. National Guard veteran at a football game. (VIDEO: Cops Allegedly Assault National Guard Veteran At Ole Miss-LSU Football Game)
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