A ban on Christmas decorations this year at the Staten Island ferry terminal in a bid to avoid lawsuits sparked an unusual protest Friday.

Self-proclaimed activist and Staten Island resident Scott LoBaido found a loophole in the rule imposed at the transit hub by the Department of Transportation and dressed up as a seven-foot Christmas tree, sparking smiles and cheers, myFOXny.com reported.

“It’s just a costume,” he said from inside the tree which was decorated with tinsel and baubles. “You ever come by here on Halloween? People have the craziest costumes.

This just happens to be what I’m wearing today.”

He called the department’s edict, introduced last week for safety reasons, as “political correctness gone crazy.”

“A simple Christmas tree brings so much joy,” LoBaido said while wandering the St. George terminal.

LoBaido told the New York Daily News he spent nearly $400 on the costume, using mostly chicken wire, duct tape and “a lot of battery-operated lights.”

The U.S. Postal Service is bankrupt. Abused by years of mismanagement and fierce competition in the shipping business the Postal Service is inept, incompetent and woefully broke. They’re cutting back services, stifling customer service and draining the coffers of the government at a record pace. We only point all this out in advance of telling this next sad chapter in the saga of the U.S. Postal Service.

The U.S. Postal Service has ordered a letter carrier to stop wearing a Santa Claus outfit after a co-worker complained.

Bob McLean has been dressing up as Santa for the past decade, donning a red suit to deliver the mail along his route in Bellevue, WA. He even has a snow white beard – that’s real.

“The government is shutting me down because it’s a non-postal regulation uniform, McLean told the Bellevue Reporter. “This was the first time; I don’t know what happened. I don’t step on anyone’s toes. Being Santa isn’t religious to me; it’s secular. It’s about giving.”

But the U.S. Postal Service said it’s about looking like a letter carrier.

“The Santa Claus suit is not in compliance with the Postal Service’s dress code for letter carriers,” Postal Service spokesman Ernie Swanson told Fox News & Commentary.

He confirmed that someone was not too happy about a colleague dressed like Jolly Old Saint Nick.

“He had been doing this for some and there had not been an issue and a couple of weeks ago one of his fellow carriers raised the issue with management,” Swanson said. “The postmaster acknowledges that until one of his fellow carriers made an issue out of it he was okay with it,” Swanson said.

By most accounts, McLean’s Santa suit was well-received along his route – especially the children.

“Little kids – they just stare because they wonder,” said Brenda Archuletta in an interview with the Bellevue Reporter.

“I love seeing Santa,” Rachel Young told television station News 9. “It does bring cheer. It brings something to old Main Street that other places don’t have.”

Regardless of what the Postal Service said, McLean told News 9 he plans on defying orders.

“Kinda going rogue,” he said. “Might get in trouble.”

The Postal Service said there was no leeway in the dress code.

“The postmaster didn’t feel he had any choice in the matter,” Swanson said.

Priceless.

A Massachusetts school system is embroiled in a war on Christmas debate after Santa Claus was initially banned from visiting elementary school children over “religious” concerns.

Since 1960 firefighters in the town of Saugus dressed up like Santa Claus and visited every elementary school handing out coloring books. But on Monday, the school superintendent told firefighters that they would not be welcomed into the classrooms.

“Certainly everyone acknowledges their holiday in a special way they want. But there is a conflict between the church and the state in that regard,” Superintendent Richard Langlois told MyFoxBoston.com.

However, Santa Claus is not a religious figure – and is not mentioned anywhere in the Biblical story of the birth of Jesus.

Regardless, the superintendent stood by his decision until word began to spread across the community. By late Monday, Santa had been given a temporary reprieve. The Saugus School Committee is expected to address the issue next month – meaning Santa’s days may be numbered.

“I couldn’t believe it,” firefighter Mark Gannon told MyFoxBoston.com. “There are so many things in the world going on – to see that all of a sudden Santa can’t go to the schools – what else are we going to give up?”

Gannon said he’s been participating in the Christmas tradition for the past 14 years – and said the children absolutely love to see Old Saint Nick.

“It’s a great thing,” he said.

Superintendent Langlois defended his Santa ban – saying he was simply enforcing the rules..

“I’m carrying out the orders of the school community,” he said. “I’m not overstepping my bounds.”

But the firefighters said there is absolutely nothing religious about what they are doing.

“There’s no religious content in the coloring books,” Gannon said, noting that the coloring books feature characters like Strawberry Shortcake.

At least one school committee member is supporting the firefighters, calling the Santa controversy a case of political correctness gone amuck.

A group of Christmas carolers was thrown out of a U.S. Post Office in Silver Spring, MD, after the post office manager told them they were not allowed to sing Christmas carols on government property.

A spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service confirmed the incident occurred Saturday at a branch office in the Aspen Hill Shopping Center. A trio of carolers walked into the building dressed in attire reminiscent of Charles Dickens and began singing.

“They were only a few notes into their carol when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a scowling postal manager rushing to confront the carolers,” said JP Duffy, who was standing in a line with his wife and two-year-old daughter.

Duffy, who also happens to be a staff member of the Family Research Council, said he was stunned by what happened next.

“He told them that they had to leave immediately because they were violating the post office’s policy against solicitation,” Duffy said. “He told them they couldn’t do this on government property. He said: ‘You can’t go into Congress and sing and you can’t do it here either.’”

A spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service’s Capital Metro ARea said the carolers had “beautiful voices” but were told they could not perform in the lobby.

“Public assembly and public address, except when conducted or sponsored by the Postal Service, are prohibited in lobbies and other interior areas open to the public,” the spokesperson told Fox News & Commentary.

“We have rules and regulations governing conduct on postal property,” the spokesman said. “The only reason you should be inside is for postal business.”

The carolers explained that they had been performing at businesses in the shopping center for several years – including the post office – and they’ve never encountered any problems. But the post office employee refused to budge and ordered them to leave.

Duffy said that customers standing in line began to boo the postal worker.

“Over the last several years, we have watched militant secularists team up with federal bureaucrats in the effort to sterilize the public square of anything remotely connected to anything religious,” Duffy said. “This postal manager has clearly received the memo which has led him to stamp out Christmas caroling. But I have my own memo to all the Christmas carolers out there. Let’s not surrender to the secularist version of Christmas future.”

Duffy suggested that the U.S. Post Office follow the advice of its founder – Benjamin Franklin.

“So shalt thou always live jollily; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas,” Franklin once wrote.

“This is good advice that the U.S. Post Office and all of us would do well to heed,” Duffy said.