Times are tough in Michigan — real tough. The emergency manager sent to save Flint, Michigan from bankruptcy is going to great lengths to slash budgets and increase revenue. His efforts included a plan to sell the antique Santa and reindeer Christmas display that has adorned city hall for decades. They went up for auction at the starting price of $5.

In other words, there was no longer a job for Santa in Flint, Michigan.

But a local resident, Melodee Mabbitt, says her hometown doesn’t need more bad news, so she and her husband bid $150 for the jolly old elf, his sleigh and four reindeer that sit atop Flint’s city hall during the holidays.

But they were quickly outbid. Then Mabbitt’s mother said she’d match their bid. Mabbitt also posted what was happening on Facebook. And a short time later …

“I was getting phone calls from people saying, ‘Here’s 200 bucks. Go save that Santa!’”

And Mabbitt did, for $1,330.

“We thought that was too sad a story for Flint to have to live with,” Mabbitt says. “We have enough going on in this town without taking our Santa and auctioning him on the Internet.”

She says the group wants to put Santa back to work at city hall.

“He’s lovely. He’s one of these antique Santas you really can’t find anywhere anymore. Replacing him would have been really hard for the city to do, especially given the situation we’re in.

“He’s a symbol of hope for everybody in the community and for children,” Mabbitt says.

A Christmas light fight is gaining momentum months ahead of the holiday season in Plantation, Florida where a home with more than 200,000 lights has neighbors there fed up. Hyatt Extreme Christmas, a nationally known home famous for lights, decorations and plenty of traffic, is coming under fire from neighbors who declare they just can’t take it anymore.

According to The Sun Sentinel neighbors are headed to court after the city said it has legally done all it can to scale back the display that includes almost 200,000 lights, a 20-foot Ferris wheel that gives stuffed animals a ride, a 30-foot Christmas tree, life-size gingerbread men, a snow-blowing machine, moving elves and a 20-foot inflatable movie screen that loops Disney movies.

“I’ve tried to be the peacemaker,” lamented Mayor Diane Veltri Bendekovic on Friday. “It’s just not happening. It’s like the Hatfields and the McCoys out there.”

The issue might wind up in the court system. Bendekovic said residents have the option of asking a civil judge to declare the property a nuisance, citing a quality-of-life issue. “It’s a civil matter — neighbor to neighbor,” she said.

In the meantime, she said the city has applied to the state for “no parking” signs along Old Hiatus Road. While the mayor said the intention was for consistency along the road, it would limit the number of people who could attend the display, because throngs of cars park on the street around the corner from the Hyatt house.

“The city has done legally [everything] it can,” she said.

The fireworks are just beginning on this controversy and given the off-season attention it is getting we think it may lead the way this upcoming season as light fights seem to be one of the hottest issues in the so-called War on Christmas for 2013.

A bipartisan bill passed the Texas state legislature that removes the legal risks of saying or using the words “Merry Christmas” in Texas public schools. Designed to fend off what the bill’s sponsors call “ridiculous lawsuits” the bill not only allows the words “Merry Christmas” to be used but also green lights the use of Christmas trees (which teachers can now legally call Christmas trees), menorahs, and nativity scenes so long as more than one religious or secular symbol is reflected.

Texas has seen its share of lawsuits in the ongoing war on Christmas. In 2012 the city of Crockett, Texas was sued by the out-of-state Freedom from Religion foundation for a nativity scene on public property. In 2011 Henderson County Texas made national headlines for a similar ruckus raised over a Christmas display in Athens, Texas.

As reported when the Merry Christmas bill was introduced the legislation is designed to protect school districts and other budget-strapped government operations to give up on defending Christmas lights, displays, events and decorations simply because they lack the resources to fight lawsuits that come from heavily financed organizations from out of state.

Texas Atheists are upset over the bill, saying that the bill is merely intended to promote prominent religions in the region.

The many Christmas light fights across America we have been documenting include a minor skirmish in the township of Elyria, Ohio where an elderly woman displaying a dozen strands of soft white and colored lights received a written threat about her display in mid-February. The writer of the threat has been identified and arrested by local police.

Rose Marie O’neal stays with her elderly mom to care for her and keep her company. This Christmas she was feeling extremely grateful for all of her blessings and strung Christmas lights across the bushes and trees in her mother’s front yard.

“I just thought they were nice and I like looking at them, it reminds me of all the good things I have to be grateful about,” said a kind and warmhearted Rose Marie.

She continued turning the lights on past the holidays to break up the dreary winter nights.

She says she and her mother truly enjoyed looking at the beautiful, colorful display.

But in February someone left an extremely angry letter in the family’s mailbox.

According to Elyria Police, it read, “Please take your d### Christmas lights down. Christmas and New Year’s have already passed and is no where near. I’m tired of seein’ that s###. Don’t make me tell you again. Thanks n####.”

“I’m just shocked and the way they said it was just so mean and nasty,” said Rose Marie. The family doesn’t want any trouble but they also feel they should be permitted to have the lights on their property. The display is not overdone and consists of only about a dozen or so strands of soft white and colorful lights. Rose Marie says if anyone had asked her politely she would’ve absolutely turned them off.

Police in Elyria, west of Cleveland, said a 15 year old girl was charged with disorderly conduct after the neighbor told officers she was threatened by the letter allegedly written and left by the teen. Police Capt. Chris Costantino told the local newspaper that the teen “thought it was going to be funny, but after she saw it on the news, she realized it was not so funny.”

Another battle in the war on Christmas appears to be over as the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court has ruled that a student can distribute flyers to a church Christmas party at school. We reported on this story more than a year ago as the incident involving a student known only as K.A. attempted to distribute a flyer inviting her classmates to her church Christmas party.

The student was denied the right do that based upon a school policy requiring approval of the school principal. When the student sought approval she was denied on the basis that her flyer violated the district’s policy barring material that “seeks to establish the supremacy of a particular religious denomination, sect or point of view”. The lawsuit that was brought forth cited violation of the student’s first amendment rights of free speech.

In defending the suit the school district claimed the flyers would prove a disruption at the school. The judges say there is no evidence the flyers would prove “disruptive” at school. That is the Supreme Court standard for free speech cases involving students. For the first time, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court is applying that standard to elementary school students.

In this case, the handout advertised a 2010 Christmas party at Innovation Church in Mt. Poconos, with face painting, music and games. The court noted that the Poconos Mountain School District lets students bring home flyers about other non-school events.

In an interesting twist, this is the same court that previously ruled that a preschooler could not distribute pencils promoting a Christian message to classmates.