Welcome back to JBER, Christmas!

By SUZANNE DOWNING

During the bewildering Biden years, even Christmas on military bases became a casualty of the Democrat war on American culture. Across the ranks, the holiday that 90% of Americans celebrate was rebranded, softened, or scrubbed of any reference to what it actually is: Christmas. It was just “holiday.”

Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson was no exception. Under the Biden Pentagon and the current JBER commander, Col. Lisa Mabbutt, the season was carefully reclassified. Gone were Christmas trees; in their place stood “holiday trees.” Releases described “tree-lighting ceremonies” as though the word Christmas had become classified material.

Last year’s JBER press release leaned all the way in. Not one mention of a Christmas tree – just a generic “tree” and a “holiday lighting.” It fit perfectly within the bureaucratic contortions we’d come to expect from a Defense Department intent on avoiding cultural friction, even if that means avoiding the country’s own traditions.

It also matched Mabbutt’s reputation: a commander who will open events with land acknowledgments about how her military base is on stolen land.

But something changed this year.

Although commander still could not utter the word “Christmas,” the institution around her – the Pentagon, the Department of War, and ultimately JBER’s own communications team – quietly put Christmas back in the Christmas tree.

The 2025 release did not tiptoe around the season. It stated plainly that the ceremony marked the beginning of Christmas, and it called the evergreen what it has been for generations: a Christmas tree. No euphemisms. No linguistic yoga. No apologies.

The contrast with 2024 could not be sharper. Last year’s release was the rhetorical equivalent of shrugging off the nation’s heritage. This year’s sounded like a base remembering who it is.

That shift did not occur in isolation. It came because President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have reoriented the Pentagon back toward normalcy. Celebrating Christmas is not exclusionary; pretending it isn’t Christmas has always been the thing that looked forced.

Still, Mabbutt’s personal discomfort with the word remains. Last year, her quote was a soft-focus nod to “celebrating the season.” This year, in a release explicitly about the Christmas tree lighting, she spoke only of operations tempo, partners, challenges, and readiness. Not a syllabl about the occasion at hand. One could read the entire statement and never guess she was attending a Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

Here’s what Col Mabbutt said about the Christmas tree lighting: “It has been an incredibly busy year here at JBER with expected and unexpected challenges. Together, we have knocked it out of the park, and no one knows better than Colonel Jimmy Howell how important this joint team is to projecting power across multiple theaters, to producing ready Airmen and Soldiers for a ready base and ready community. We couldn’t ask for better partners. This is a team effort and I’m always proud to share the load.”

Seriously?

And yet, even around commanders who avoid the word, the military culture is shifting back toward something more grounded and familiar. Christmas is woven into military life—into mess halls, barracks, family support centers, and the memories of service members who have spent December far from home. It is a tradition that has carried men and women through wartime deployments and cold nights in places far harsher than Anchorage.

Symbols matter. When the military refuses to say “Christmas,” it is not being neutral; it is erasing a shared tradition that has long strengthened the fabric of military communities.

When a base like JBER restores the word, it is performing a cultural course correction. It’s one small but meaningful step toward honoring its own history and the people who serve.

So yes, we can applaud JBER for turning the corner. One base cannot fix the Pentagon’s drift, but it can model the return to tradition.

Welcome back, Christmas tree. It’s good to see your name again.

Suzanne Downing is editor of The Alaska Story.