Colored lights, Christmas trees and menorahs are brightening town squares around the state, but the legal landscape for such displays remains murky. Some schools are also wrestling with how to incorporate elements of Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa in their classrooms, assemblies and hallways. The best advice from experts: honor the year-end traditions of different religions without endorsing a particular ideology. The season often spawns lawsuits around the nation regarding religious symbols on government property and in public schools. Displaying a creche or singing Christmas carols have all been the subject of court fights over whether they violate the constitutional prohibition against mixing government and religion. The courts have provided plenty of directions, making for a confusing road map, said William G. Dressel Jr., executive director of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities. As a result, the guidance the league offers is among the most popular items on its Web site, trolled by officials from many of the state’s 566 towns, Dressel said. Several appellate rulings covering New Jersey “all take pains to distinguish their holdings and insist that none of them contradict each other. Nevertheless, it is hard to formulate any set of rules to ensure that a given display is constitutionally permissible if it has any religious symbols in it,” he wrote to members. His guidance noted, “Municipal holiday displays that are limited to more secular images, like Santa Claus and Christmas trees, are likely to survive constitutional scrutiny, However, it is still unclear under what circumstances more religious symbols, like creches, menorahs, or in related cases, copies of the Ten Commandments, may be displayed by a municipality or on municipal property.” The league’s lawyer, Deborah M. Kole, said there is no “magic bullet” that will automatically prevent lawsuits. “The basic thing with the issue is that the state cannot appear to be promoting one religion over another. But within that general principal, there’s a lot of wiggle room,” Kole said. Like the League of Municipalities, the New Jersey School Boards Association, which represents over 600 districts, cannot provide ironclad rules. “Schools can’t promote religion or inhibit religion, but it’s not so cut and dried as saying no religion in school,’ or no Christmas in school,”’ said association spokesman Michael Yaple. He said most schools, as part of their educational program, have Christmas carols as well as music for Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. “I think what you’re seeing now is more of a change in philosophies, for allowing more inclusion,” Yaple said.