By Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

Amidst all the hand wringing and tooth gnashing over the patently false story that Somerville is somehow refusing to celebrate fall holidays, I realized this Sunday on Somerville Avenue we’re throwing the biggest Halloween bash in the greater Boston area and I need a costume to wear.

So I’m going as Christopher Columbus.

I’m the right age. Columbus made three of his voyages to the new world when he was in his 40s. I’m an Italian-American. And I like boats. I can even supply my own fleet. Three of my sons can be the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. The littlest one can be a dinghy.

After all, when something bizarre happens you need to have some fun with it. It’s the only sane response to insanity. Part of living life the Somerville way is not taking yourself too seriously and way too many people of all political stripes have been taking themselves way too seriously over this non-issue. Once again, we celebrated Columbus Day last week. City employees and students got the day off the same as they do every year. We’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving Day next month. And if you drive around our city, go into our schools or come down to Somerville Avenue this Sunday you’ll see a city that is having plenty of fun with Halloween.

One of the interesting things about this fake controversy is that most of the feedback we’ve gotten has been positive. I’ve had people coming up to me wondering what the big deal is. They understand that you can celebrate a holiday and still have a discussion about you teach history. They also expect our educators to have discussions about how to teach history.

Yet there have been plenty angry emails and calls, mostly from outside of Somerville. To a degree you can’t blame them. News outlets started reporting we have a holiday ban. Late night comedians started making jokes about it. Senator Scott Brown, who hasn’t bothered to come to Somerville since he got elected, managed to fire off a tweet about it. Perhaps the Herald column reminded him that we’re actually part of the state he represents in Washington D.C., which would be a positive we could take from the whole experience.

Talk radio across the country, even sports radio hosts, had a field day with this, spending days misinforming the public. The website for the Daily Mail in London even had the story at the top of its front page.

You’d be amazed to hear how this is exactly like what happened in Germany in the 1930s. Yes, people got so worked up over this they compared it to Nazi Germany. As a side note, this is why we like our educators to have discussions about teaching history.

My suggestion is not to get so worked up over this classic tempest in a teapot. How will you laugh tomorrow if you can’t even smile today? Me, I’m going to have a smile on my face as I parade around in my Christopher Columbus costume during Somerville’s Halloween festivities. I’ll be out there with a few thousand friends who share my holiday and community spirit.

It’s a lot more fun than yelling at strangers over the Internet.