{"id":5239,"date":"2010-12-16T13:18:27","date_gmt":"2010-12-16T19:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jesusneedsnewpr.net\/?p=5239"},"modified":"2011-05-03T16:56:57","modified_gmt":"2011-05-03T16:56:57","slug":"the-11-million-dollar-christmas-tree-brought-to-you-by-muslims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesusneedsnewpr\/2010\/12\/the-11-million-dollar-christmas-tree-brought-to-you-by-muslims.html","title":{"rendered":"The 11-million-dollar Christmas tree (brought to you by Muslims!)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jesusneedsnewpr.net\/2010\/12\/capt.photo_1292435622273-1-0.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5240\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jesusneedsnewpr.net\/2010\/12\/capt.photo_1292435622273-1-0.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"399\" height=\"266\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s beginning to look a lot like Christmas&#8230; in the United Arab Emirates! Wow. Or&#8230; glory to <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through\">Allah<\/span> God in the highest!<\/p>\n<p>According to the Yahoo news report&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>Christmas came in extravagant fashion to the Muslim desert emirate of  Abu Dhabi as a glitzy hotel unveiled a bejewelled Christmas tree valued  at more than 11 million dollars on Wednesday. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>It is the &#8220;most expensive Christmas tree ever,&#8221; with a &#8220;value of over 11  million dollars,&#8221; said Hans Olbertz, general manager of <a id=\"KonaLink0\" href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/afp\/20101215\/od_afp\/uaehotelchristmasoffbeat#\" target=\"undefined\"><span style=\"color: #366388\">Emirates Palace<\/span><\/a><\/em> hotel, at its inauguration.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Eleven million dollars? On a Christmas tree? Of course, it&#8217;s not a CHRISTmas tree. But it&#8217;s not a MOHAMMEDtree either. It&#8217;s a Christmas tree. Or perhaps it&#8217;s a christmas tree. But still&#8230; ELEVEN MILLION DOLLARS?!<\/p>\n<p>I bet Dick Cheney is behind this somehow.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Asked if the tree might offend religious sensibilities in the United  Arab Emirates, where the vast majority of the local population is  Muslim, Olbertz said he did not think it would. &#8220;It&#8217;s a very liberal  country,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I wonder what would happen if a hotel in Atlanta decided to put up decorations to celebrate Ramadan? My guess is that Fox News would declare them terrorists. Again&#8230; that&#8217;s just a guess.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/afp\/20101215\/od_afp\/uaehotelchristmasoffbeat\">Read the whole article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s beginning to look a lot like Christmas&#8230; in the United Arab Emirates! Wow. Or&#8230; glory to Allah God in the highest! According to the Yahoo news report&#8230; Christmas came in extravagant fashion to the Muslim desert emirate of Abu Dhabi as a glitzy hotel unveiled a bejewelled Christmas tree valued at more than 11&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":412,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The 11-million-dollar Christmas tree (brought to you by Muslims!) - Jesus Needs New PR<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesusneedsnewpr\/2010\/12\/the-11-million-dollar-christmas-tree-brought-to-you-by-muslims.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The 11-million-dollar Christmas tree (brought to you by Muslims!) - Jesus Needs New PR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s beginning to look a lot like Christmas&#8230; in the United Arab Emirates! Wow. Or&#8230; glory to Allah God in the highest! According to the Yahoo news report&#8230; Christmas came in extravagant fashion to the Muslim desert emirate of Abu Dhabi as a glitzy hotel unveiled a bejewelled Christmas tree valued at more than 11&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesusneedsnewpr\/2010\/12\/the-11-million-dollar-christmas-tree-brought-to-you-by-muslims.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Needs New PR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-16T19:18:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-05-03T16:56:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.jesusneedsnewpr.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/capt.photo_1292435622273-1-0.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Matthew Paul Turner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The 11-million-dollar Christmas tree (brought to you by Muslims!) - Jesus Needs New PR","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesusneedsnewpr\/2010\/12\/the-11-million-dollar-christmas-tree-brought-to-you-by-muslims.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The 11-million-dollar Christmas tree (brought to you by Muslims!) - Jesus Needs New PR","og_description":"It&#8217;s beginning to look a lot like Christmas&#8230; in the United Arab Emirates! Wow. Or&#8230; glory to Allah God in the highest! According to the Yahoo news report&#8230; Christmas came in extravagant fashion to the Muslim desert emirate of Abu Dhabi as a glitzy hotel unveiled a bejewelled Christmas tree valued at more than 11&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesusneedsnewpr\/2010\/12\/the-11-million-dollar-christmas-tree-brought-to-you-by-muslims.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Needs New PR","article_published_time":"2010-12-16T19:18:27+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-05-03T16:56:57+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.jesusneedsnewpr.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/capt.photo_1292435622273-1-0.jpg"}],"author":"Matthew Paul Turner","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesusneedsnewpr\/2010\/12\/the-11-million-dollar-christmas-tree-brought-to-you-by-muslims.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesusneedsnewpr\/2010\/12\/the-11-million-dollar-christmas-tree-brought-to-you-by-muslims.html","name":"The 11-million-dollar Christmas tree (brought to you by Muslims!) - 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