Clearly, this paste-up was always going to offend. But the school and festival organisers have taken a sensible and professional course of action in removing the work.

Should the work have been placed on public view? Probably not. Such a depiction of something as sacred as Christmas was always going to cause enormous controversy, regardless of the intended meaning. Perhaps that should have been taken into account by both the students who created the work and teachers at the school who we assume were aware of the content.

But college acting principal Paul Frye offered a good explanation of the sentiment behind the paste-up yesterday. He said the street art project was designed to get students to think about the commercial messages on billboards and offer an alternative view.

The sentiment behind “Christmas is a lie” was a reference to the commercialisation of Christmas and not the religious importance. If that was indeed the sentiment, then it’s a fair argument expressed by those who created this paste up. Many people would agree that such commercialisation has overcome Christmas sentiment. In fact, it’s not uncommon to see people writing letters to newspapers or posting thoughts on social media every festive season protesting about the true meaning of Christmas being lost in this way.

The problem with this street art exhibition paste-up is that people were always going to jump to the conclusion that it was an attack on the religious meaning of Christmas. Seems like a very good learning experience for all concerned.?