The most outrageous offender of this year’s Christmas and Hanukkah season, and Becket’s 2025 Ebenezer Award winner, is Mayor Miko Pickett of Mullins, South Carolina, who ordered the removal of a Nativity scene from public property. Combining constitutional confusion with holiday scroogery, the mayor cited America’s tradition of separation of church and state. But the Supreme Court has explained time and again that our law does not require local officials to throw out the baby with the bathwater. America’s law and best traditions protect the right of citizens to celebrate their religious heritage without a government-ordered grinch turning out the lights.
Mayor Pickett’s order targeted a three-by-four-foot Nativity scene placed near Mullins’ marketplace as part of the city’s Christmas decorations, which also included a snowman, wreaths, lights, and Santa Claus. The display was organized and paid for out of pocket by the Mullins Beautification Committee, which had been preparing the area for the marketplace’s first Christmas season. According to city employees, the mayor said the Nativity scene made the city appear “not neutral” toward religion. When that threatened to turn a festive celebration into a public controversy just weeks before Christmas, Committee chair Kimberly Byrd defied the mayor and kept the Nativity scene.
And so, Becket is offering its second-ever Tiny Tim Toast to the Mullins Beautification Committee chair, Kimberly Byrd. Inspired by the enduring spirit of hope, perseverance, and joy embodied by the beloved character from A Christmas Carol, the Tiny Tim Toast celebrates those who inspire that spirit during the Christmas and Hanukkah season. When pressured to remove the Mullins Nativity scene, Byrd stood her ground, making clear that she would not take it down because “The true meaning of Christmas is not Santa, it is The Birth of Jesus Christ.” May we all learn from Byrd’s faith and fortitude this holiday season.
From the Becket team, we wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a joyous New Year!
