A Florida man known for his over-the-top holiday displays is battling the wrath of neighbors up-in-holiday arms over his annual Christmas Holiday Show.

Rick Newman of Boca Raton, Fla., is well known in the seaside community for the elaborate light and music displays he has staged twice a year, at Halloween and Christmas, for the past four years.

While his displays attract huge crowds of merry celebrators, they also attract controversy.

City officials threatened to shut down Newman’s Halloween show in October because of its live performances that featured 20 teenagers dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

This month, it’s his neighbors who want the show not to go on.

“There are two people that wake up in the morning being mean,” Newman told ABCNews.com, describing his most outspoken neighbors.

“One neighbor put up a barrier so that no one could park,” he said. “He’s a true Grinch. He comes over at night and yells at people.”

Newman’s Christmas display comes complete with more than 20,000 lights and Christmas figurines, all choreographed to holiday music broadcast on a PA system until 10 p.m. seven nights per week. There’s also fake snow and a real, live Santa Claus.

Newman, who has a background in sound engineering and nightclub production and now owns a DVD duplication company, says the show routinely draws at least 500 people on weekends, and crowds of 200 to 300 each weekday during its approximately six-week run from Thanks giving to the new year.

The un-neighborly fight over Christmas has been well-publicized in Boca Raton, but it hasn’t diminished crowds in search of Christmas cheer.

The show is so well-known that a local radio station broadcasts its soundtrack during the height of the Christmas season.

“People have come out of the woodwork in support of what I’m doing and think this is absolutely ridiculous,” Newman said. “This isn’t the hugest display in the world. This is just lights done to music and people like it.”

While the city’s concerns over Newman’s antics in October centered on whether his “Thriller” dances violated neighborhood code ordinances – they backed down only at the last minute after Newman agreed not to stage live performances at future shows – this time, officials say, Newman’s show is fine, but his neighbor’s actions are not.

“He told police he would remove the barriers but instead reinforced them this past weekend,” Newman said, referring to his neighbor, who has remained anonymous in the fight.

“The barricades are on the public swale so people cannot pull over to watch the show,” Newman said. “Their [the city's] only concern right now is that the neighbors, because of what they did, created a parking hazard.”

Calls to Boca Raton city officials for comment have yet to be returned.

The neighbor who placed the barricades around Newman’s home hasn’t lived in his home for three years while it undergoes renovation, according to Newman.

The neighbor has not spoken publicly about his actions, choosing to wage his Christmas battle in the street, not the media.

Adding to the drama, and public’s interest, is Newman’s using his annual displays to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

He raised nearly $2,000 during this year’s Halloween display alone that featured the “Thriller” performances. That was more than the $1,400 he collected for last year’s Halloween and Christmas displays combined.

“All this is going to do is hurt the kids who come here and the ones who aren’t fortunate enough to be able to make it here,” Newman said.

A Chireno substitute school teacher is the subject of some Christmas controversy this week after she apparently told a class of middle school students there is no Santa Claus.

The substitute art teacher, who was filling in for a long-term substitute teacher, reportedly made comments Wednesday during class suggesting that Santa is not real and your parents buy your Christmas presents and leave them underneath the tree every year.

Word of the incident spread, angering some parents who believe it is not a teacher’s place to tell children what to believe.

Earlier this week, a New York elementary school teacher came under fire after she apparently told her 7-year-old students there is no Santa Claus. According to published reports, during a discussion of the North Pole, the second grade geography teacher, apparently told the children their holiday presents were purchased by their parents, not Santa, the reports said.

Anyone questioning Ellwood City’s holiday orientation received a definitive answer as the first float in Saturday’s Christmas parade passed the municipal building on Lawrence Avenue.

Children from the First Christian Church, dressed as cattle, sheep and angels, waved to the crowd assembled on the sidewalks.

“The night-before-Christmas creatures are looking for Jesus,” the public address announcer said. “Are you?”

A letter from the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, revealed earlier this week, challenged the borough’s decision to display a Christian Nativity on municipal building property. The foundation asked to display a banner that said, in part, “Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

There were at least three Christian-themed floats in Saturday’s parade. There were no Freedom From Religion floats or banners. Municipal property, late Saturday afternoon, housed the Nativity along with Santa Claus, a reindeer and sleigh, a snowman, a Kwanzaa sign and a wind-blown Trader Horn advertisement (“all Christmas wreaths in stock 25% off, window candles 2 for $5.”)

When Saturday’s parade ended, three generations of Ellwood City resident Doris Rosado’s family visited the borough’s Nativity for photographs. There were two other families that arrived for photographs before them.

“I feel good about Ellwood City taking a stand,” Rosado said. “If you don’t believe in it, don’t look at it.”

On Friday, Ellwood City area residents rallied in support of the Nativity. One of the Christian supporters planted a handmade banner in the ground next to the Nativity. It reflected the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech … ”

Ashley Thompson, Rosado’s daughter, took a similar stance.

“I understand both sides of the controversy, but this is what the people want. Shouldn’t the people of Ellwood City decide what to do?”

On Sunday, the group Wisconsin Family Action put up a nativity scene of the birth of Jesus in the Capitol rotunda.

Wednesday, an atheist group responded with a much different nativity scene.

It has the same setup: wise men, a baby in a manger, angels, but its certainly not the nativity scene most people are used to seeing.

The wise men are Charles Darwin, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein.

The baby is an African girl, to represent the birthplace of humanity.

The angels are an astronaut and the Statue of Liberty.

The group responsible for it admits they wouldn’t have even created it, if it wasn’t for the Christian nativity scene put up three days earlier.

“But, since it is a public forum, it didn’t look like legally we could do anything, so, we were left with putting up our own, natural nativity display,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

FFRF is putting up a fight against what it calls the blurring of church and state.

“We think that the rotunda is getting too littered, we don’t think that it should be a public forum for religion at the seat of government,” said Gaylor.

The nativity scene controversy comes just a few weeks after Governor Scott Walker referred to the pine tree put on display in the rotunda as a Christmas Tree, instead of a Holiday Tree, which it had been called since 1985.

“Yeah, I feel like the fact that there was a statement that, ‘this is a Christmas Tree, not a Holiday Tree,’ does make it a little…those lines are merging and I don’t think that should happen in government, said UW Student Ali Bramson.

Others think the Christian references and displays are hurting anybody.

“I personally thought it was mockery not to call it a Christmas Tree down through these years, because it seemed like you couldn’t celebrate any of the holidays,” said John McNeill, a Christian.

While the controversy goes on, many wish both sides would simply go away.

“I would rather see neither,” said visitor Caroline Greenwald. “I believe that the state represents the people, and the people are very diverse and represents all sorts of religion or non-religious attitudes or feelings.”

“We certainly need separation of church and state, so I think its very unfortunate that it becomes an issue,” said Ray Nashold, a former state worker.

The nativity scenes are both permitted and will stay up through the holidays.

A new ad from UNICEF Sweden is meant to encourage viewers to give gifts of charity during the Holiday Season, but has the punchline and vibe of an Occupy Wall Street propaganda linking Santa Claus to the 1 percent. Could the United Nations Children’s Fund be the latest participant in the War on Christmas?

While giving charitable donations in others names as gifts may be a noble gesture, the brash and cold Saint Nick presented in the commercial seems like an odd way to entice viewers to purchase UNICEF stocking suffers such as malaria tablets, rehydration bags and polio vaccines.

“I don’t do poor countries,” says Santa in a malevolent tone closing the commercial. He is followed by the UNICEF message “We go where Santa doesn’t — Buy your Christmas gifts at unicef.se.”