OK, Jodi – you got me on this one. The argument can be made that St. Nick is a religious figure, but I have to agree the holiday is basically secular as is the current Santa mythos. I grew up in an atheist household and we had a secular Christmas. Taking Santa out of the schools is over-zealous.
You’d have to get rid of Halloween, i.e. the eve before all-hallow’s day a.k.a. All Saint’s Day.
You’d have to get rid of St. Valentine’s day. And St. Patrick’s day.
Why any of this needs to be in the schools is beyond me, and I wouldn’t care either way, but the weight tradition outweighs the religious nature of these holiday’s, however circumspect that nature may be.
It is so ordered, no motion for a re-hearing will be allowed.
Jodi:Every thing else is the same, right down to Dad kicking us readers out of the ski lodge.
Well natch, it’s an American tradition! All you ski-maven dads out there, Christian or other, can now argue for spending Christmas on the slopes on the grounds that it’s a secular national custom. But please, let the kids finish the chapter they’re on, okay?
Just to clarify one last time – I’m no big fan of emphasizing Santa in school myself and I wouldn’t care if they showed him the door, at least for the younger kids. Religious or secular, Santa is a figure who brings presents to some kids and not to others, and I don’t think there’s any need to make kids who are not visited by Santa feel excluded, be they non-Christian or extremely fundamentalist Christian or whatever. It’s the same rationale for making us bring valentines for all the kids on Valentine’s Day – even the kids we didn’t like. School should not make children feel bad if it can be avoided. But the argument is that Santa is potentially divisive, not that he is religious. This IMO is especially true for younger kids who do not understand that different traditions mean different celebrations for different people, and that you might get presents on an occasion that I may not.
This may be a bit late in the game; I just looked and several of you have posted since I started this. But I’ve just finished writing it, so I’m gonna post it anyway. Sorry!
Jodi et alia: (I address Jodi since I quoted her post as an example, but this is directed towards many of you):
First, I think that you vastly underestimate the feelings of some (not all) non-Christians. “Irritate” doesn’t begin to cover it. But then again, your attitude is very common among Christians and among those who celebrate Christmas (the two groups are not identical). That is exactly where a great part of the problem lies.
You can see where Christmas hype may “irritate” some people. But, really, you think we should just get over it - it’s not that big a deal and all. Besides, we’re in the minority, so we don’t really matter anyway. And of course, since no one is deliberately plotting to “irritate” us, then we shouldn’t have a problem.
It’s much the same attitude as many display regarding, for instance, school prayer - see the recent thread for examples. “Well, of COURSE the public schools should require something that fits exactly into our religion and conveniently excludes other religions. After all, we’re right and everyone else should be willing to admit that. We’re not actually requiring their kids to say Christian prayers, we’re just going to set things up to make it clear that our religious practices are the only important ones. We’re not going to let them practice their religion in school, but that’s their problem, not ours. They should be “tolerant”; we don’t have to be tolerant because we’re bigger AND better, nyah nyah nyah.” As necessary, substitute ‘people’ for ‘kids’, ‘celebrate holidays’ for ‘say prayers’, ‘society in general’ for ‘public schools’ and so on (OK, it’s a stretch on some of the exact phrasing, but I think you get the drift). That’s pretty much the attitude that y’all have shown here and that I’ve gotten IRL.
I’m fairly sure that you and other Christmasites don’t actually intend to convey that sentiment, because that’s not how you think of yourselves. You just don’t understand why anyone has a problem with how Christmas works here. Just as most school prayer advocates don’t intend to harm kids, they just don’t understand how anyone could possibly have a problem with 60 seconds of mandated silent prayer in the classroom. Nonetheless, that is EXACTLY how y’all come across when you blithely dismiss other people’s feelings and objections as inconsequential and stupid.
No, I don’t think that people intentionally celebrate Christmas just to bug non-Christians. I think that most of y’all just don’t give a damn what we think or how we feel if it’s too inconvenient for you to do so - and that is intentional and offensive.
Oh yeah, and I’m often known to ask people who “God bless me” when I sneeze whether they’re of the ‘soul blown out’ or ‘demon sucked in’ school. It does tend to make them think twice about that habit. But you’re really reaching when you have to pick as poor an example as “goodbye” to try and make your point. There is no comparison between a wordshift made many centuries ago and a modern tradition of mere decades.
If Christmas were celebrated here as a quiet religious holiday, as it is in most of the Christian world, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I would simply ignore it, since it is not my religion. Christmas is a Christian holiday, in most of the world it is a major Christian holiday. Simply because Christians in this country wish to deny the religiousity of the holiday since they’ve ruined it with their greed does not change that fact. Simply because Christians have selected new figures and symbols to represent their religious holiday does not make those figures and symbols secular.
Chanukah is a minor (or intermediate or whatever; it depends on how many levels you want to use) Jewish holiday. However, it does have a special purpose and meaning in Judaism, one which is much less similar to the greed orgy known as ‘secular American Christmas’ than is the Christian holiday. Jews in this country have been damn near COMPELLED to upgrade Chanukah and turn it into nothing more than a variation on Christmas. I have discussed this in depth with my Jewish partner, and I have read discussions by rabbis and among Jewish communities - the choice for Jews with children is to go along with the trend or to have their children treated as ostracized freaks because all of their Christian classmates ASSUME that everyone does and should celebrate Christmas. (FTR, IANAJ)
The same is true for families and children of any other religions or traditions, including those Christian sects that do not celebrate Christmas in the American orgiastic tradition.
I don’t have a real problem if schools have some sort of generic Winter Festival celebration. It is true that most religions and cultures have one. And I think it is fine if that event is used as an opportunity to learn about the various holidays, religions and traditions celebrated around the world, especially if the main focus of that study is the fact that there ARE such differences and each of those different H/R/T/etc are equally valid to their adherents. And if Santa is included as one of those traditional figures, well, OK. I object to that for the same reasons that Jodi does, but I’d get over it. However, to include one religion’s holiday figures and symbols (especially by hypocritically pretending that they don’t count as religious symbols simply because you’ve culturally enforced that holiday on everyone in the country) is wrong. It’s the same old story: there is no possible way to include ALL religious and cultural traditions in the school systems, therefore the only solution is to EXCLUDE all of them, except in a ‘comparative study’ manner.
FWIW, I’m not real big on Thanksgiving, either, but the national holiday created in the late 18th century was NOT created as a Christian holiday. In fact, it was specifically designated as a nondenominational holiday. The original, early 17th century tradition was a Puritan holiday; since NOTHING in Puritan life was secular, obviously it was a religious holiday. However, since there aren’t really any Puritans around these days, I don’t worry too much about them forcing their religion on me. Modern Christians, however, do have that bad habit.
As far as the “happy hannukah” thing goes, I think the frustration is that you people just assume that Chanukah is an important holiday because it falls at the same time of year as YOUR important holiday. Why should someone Jewish be impressed that a Christian ‘remembered’ a minor Jewish holiday when that same Christian can’t be bothered to remember the IMPORTANT Jewish holidays? The truth is, the Christian isn’t ‘remembering’ the Jewish holiday, they’re just celebrating their own holiday by extension. Then y’all expect folks of other religions & traditions to be grateful for your ‘generosity’ in acknowledging their existence and for your ‘inclusiveness’ in insisting that they observe your holiday. Bah!
So, as my neighbor, if I choose not to attend your Christmas party, that gives you the right to keep me awake all night blaring your music into my ears at several hundred decibels? If I choose not to attend your party for whatever reason, does not mean that I have automatically lost the right to expect basic courtesy from you. If people at your party are knocking on my door because your bathroom is occupied, I can tell them to piss off. If your party wanders into the street and I can’t get out of my driveway, I have a right to be angry. If some of your party attendees get drunk and disorderly on my front lawn, I can call the cops.
Yeah, I think you’ve got a pretty good analogy here. Just because YOU want to do something and lots of people want to do it with you does not give you the right to inflict it on everyone. And if we have to put up with such an affliction, we have every reason and every right to get pissed off about it.
A solution? Sorry, I don’t have one. I don’t see any way to do anything at all about it - the tradition is far too entrenched in our culture. But it seems to me that the least y’all could do is attempt to understand the way other people feel and why we have problems, rather than just getting angry because we have the audacity to call you on your arrogance.
If you’ve gotten as annoyed as y’all have because a few of us here have expressed anger and discontent over this holiday and how it is forced on us: try multiplying that by the 98% factor of opposition that we live with, and then multiply it by the 30+ years that I’ve had to live with it, then do that again for the next 50+ years that I can look forward to. Then think about it for a while, and maybe, just maybe, you can get a glimmer of how we feel.
=======WARNING: RANT AHEAD==================================
An personal explanation for those of you who haven’t understood why people have expressed problems with the Christmas holiday.
Purely personally, I detest Christmas. I utterly despise the ‘loot wars’ that go on, particularly among children (*1), I abhor the required ‘gift giving’ (*2), I loathe the incessant insistance that everyone MUST celebrate Christmas (*3), I hate the obligatory gatherings (*4). I can not begin to convey what an abomination the “Christmas season” is to me. I can’t get it across clearly in person, to people who know me fairly well; I certainly can’t manage it in type over the 'Net talking to a bunch of semi-strangers. Nor can I ever avoid it. It is omnipresent and quite often seems omnipotent at this time of year.
Essentially, my problems with Christmas fall in three areas: One, the compulsory requirements to participate (of which y’all are probably unaware, since you participate voluntarily); Two, the commercialism (with which concept I think many of you have agreed); Three, the (IMO) hypocrisy of the whole ordeal.
If Christmas is so great, why do so many people who celebrate it complain about it? Everyone seems to hate the commercial factor. ‘Dysfunctional family holiday gathering’ is a standing joke in our culture. I’ve seen many versions of the ‘required crap gifts for relatives&coworkers/required garbage gifts from relatives&coworkers’ scenario - they’re even running it in commercials these days; gift return lines are another standing joke. Lots of people hate being required to attend various functions (family parties, office parties, more parties, etc.) that they’d skip if given half a chance.
In fact, most people that I talk to REALLY SERIOUSLY DISLIKE major portions of this “glorious holiday season” - and those are the same people that claim to like Christmas! (There are a few exceptions. Over the years, I’ve actually talked to a couple of people that do love absolutely everything about the whole extravaganza and would like to have even more, but they are extremely rare. I mean, we’re talking people who think that it’s great that the holiday now starts before Halloween!) Then too, I know quite a few other people who feel the same way that I do; Adam Yax seems to be one of those, although for his own reasons (and I don’t know if his feelings are as extreme as mine). Oh yeah, and don’t forget the rise in suicide rates and general misery!
And if y’all hate those various parts of it so much (i.e., the lack of religious holiday, the overwhelming commercialism of the secular holiday) - WHY DON’T YOU DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY? Why do you participate in and encourage the continuation of things that you don’t like?
So, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING YEAR I have to go through this again. Not just listening to the same, tired carols endlessly repeated for 3 months; that is “irritating” and I can ignore it.
No, it’s explaining AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN that I do not celebrate Christmas because I am not Christian, and that I don’t WANT to celebrate Christmas because I think it is horrendous. Y’know, I know people like Christmas, and I really try to avoid explaining that last part so as not to offend them, but YOU just try convincing someone that you’re skipping Christmas this year and see what it takes to make them believe it and leave you alone.
Even when someone states (as posters have done here) that they don’t celebrate because they have their own religion and they’re not interested in practicing yours, you still give them the “aw, you should do it anyway” attitude. Once I’ve finally managed to get people to believe that I really don’t celebrate their frigging holiday, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING YEAR I get the attitude that you’ve displayed here: “Well, hmmph, you don’t have to be that way about it, if you don’t like it, just deal with it.” THEN QUIT MAKING ME PARTICIPATE IN IT, YOU PUTZES!
Why, you ask, does it come up? Why can’t I just stay in the closet? BECAUSE YOU PEOPLE TRY TO MAKE ME CELEBRATE IT!!! I’m not shoving anything in your faces; you’re shoving your holiday in my face and refusing to back off until I MAKE you. THEN you get offended because of my attitude! GAHHHHHHHHHHHHCKKKKKKKKKKK!
Just because there are more of you DOES NOT MAKE YOU RIGHT and it does not make it right for you to treat the rest of us like we’re some sort of psychotic, brain-damaged freaks because we don’t want to play your little reindeer games.
I have no objection to the religious Christian holiday of Christmas, EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT IT IS NOT MY RELIGION AND I SHOULD NOT BE FORCED TO PRACTICE IT.
I HATE ‘SECULAR’ CHRISTMAS AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH IT, BECAUSE I THINK IT IS AN EVIL, BAD THING. That does not mean that I want you to change your beliefs or your traditions; I know that many of you have family traditions and memories (both secular and religious) that you hold dear, and I have no desire whatsoever to change that. It simply means that I want you to leave me the fuck alone when I say I don’t participate, and I want you to quit insisting that people (especially kids) who don’t participate in your holiday have no rights!
(*1, *2, *3, *4)… Screw it. I’m exhausted. I’m already sick of the problems and shit that Christmas brings me every year, and it ain’t even Thanksgiving yet. Maybe this year it will be better…yeah, right.
Jodi, I do want to make sure that you realize that I don’t consider you to be particularly invidious individual in regards to this subject. And I would like to apologize if you feel that I’ve singled you out.
I used your quotes because they neatly typified and summarized the prevailing attitudes and many of the comments made by other posters, not because I felt that they were especially bad or anything.
'kay? jmullaney:
Jim Carrey? You MUST be kidding, right? I’m not tortured enough, I should have to go through that too?!?
BTW - if that was actually what this holiday (in its current incarnation) was about, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, now would we?
Well, my sisters and I have a long standing tradition. We don’t buy any gifts for each other. Ever. Some of the rest of the fam think we are insane, but hopefully that is a tradition we can pass down through the ages. When people ask me what I want, I tell them I don’t want anything. Doesn’t work well. I find the holiday equally annonying, but people can make a difference!
Oh, well, OK, technically people can’t make a difference, but you get the idea.
Gee redtail, you sound like someone in need of some holiday cheer!
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
And a Happy New Yeeeeaaaaar!
Amongst all the things that become annoying about the season, and one that you failed to rant about BTW, are the incessantly repeating Christmas carols played over and over again in every store, bank, and gas station. When I worked retail I cringed every November because I knew the music was coming. There’s only so many times you can hear “Frosty the Snowman” before you want to get a rifle and climb a tower somewhere.
Either way, I am one of the most nonreligious people I know, and I can find middle ground with the holiday. It’s a whole lot easier than going around pissed of for 3 months every year.
redtail:I don’t have a real problem if schools have some sort of generic Winter Festival celebration. It is true that most religions and cultures have one. And I think it is fine if that event is used as an opportunity to learn about the various holidays, religions and traditions celebrated around the world, especially if the main focus of that study is the fact that there ARE such differences and each of those different H/R/T/etc are equally valid to their adherents. And if Santa is included as one of those traditional figures, well, OK.
In my experience, that’s about the approach that most public schools seem to be taking. Lots of paper snowflakes and sugar cookies and snowmen and jingle bells; fewer Nativity pageants and specifically Christian stuff. A certain amount of Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/general Yulish iconography.
However, to include one religion’s holiday figures and symbols (especially by hypocritically pretending that they don’t count as religious symbols simply because you’ve culturally enforced that holiday on everyone in the country) is wrong.
Still gotta disagree with this, redtail: there really are some holiday symbols that are essentially secular even though they are associated with a holiday particularly sacred to one particular religion. Ask your Jewish partner this: is gefillte fish a religious symbol? Is a latke? Is a dreidel? Is a Purim noisemaker? These are all things that are strongly associated with Jewish religious festivals, but there’s no way you’d call them Jewish religious symbols.
Same with Christmas wreaths, trees, candy canes, Santa Claus. Yes, they are Christmas-y. No, they are not Christian. You can take the purist position that you disapprove of any holiday symbols that are associated with any religious holiday (which, I guess, would leave you with only the Fourth of July, Veterans’ Day, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day as safe for public celebration). But you cannot bolster that position by claiming that those symbols in themselves “really” have religious significance.
*[…] I have no objection to the religious Christian holiday of Christmas, EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT IT IS NOT MY RELIGION AND I SHOULD NOT BE FORCED TO PRACTICE IT. *
I have yet to see in your post actual evidence of your being “forced” to practice it. I agree that the overwhelming barrage of Christmas advertising, both religious and secular, is cranked up to an unpleasant extent. But I don’t feel that I’m being forced to participate in it. I’m being forced to notice it, yes, and forced to make an effort to avoid participating in it sometimes, but that’s not the same thing.
*I HATE ‘SECULAR’ CHRISTMAS AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH IT, BECAUSE I THINK IT IS AN EVIL, BAD THING. That does not mean that I want you to change your beliefs or your traditions; I know that many of you have family traditions and memories (both secular and religious) that you hold dear, and I have no desire whatsoever to change that. It simply means that I want you to leave me the fuck alone when I say I don’t participate, and I want you to quit insisting that people (especially kids) who don’t participate in your holiday have no rights! *
I kind of think you’ve built yourself a holiday strawman here. I agree that Christmas pressures should be turned down several notches on everybody, including schoolkids, and I agree you’re going to have a hard time reaching a comfortable accomodation with a hugely popular national holiday that you “hate” and think is “an evil, bad thing.” But I don’t think that complete freedom from the nationwide Christmas pressures is really a “right”, certainly not on a level with freedom from school-sponsored mandatory prayer. I think that your personal loathing for the occasion may be slightly coloring your views on civil liberties.
Some good points about Xmas. I’m not Christian, but I celebrate Xmas as a FAMILY holiday. If my family hadn’t started celebrating it somewhere along the line, I might have picked it up, or might not have. I have never assumed that people must celebrate it, nor that people must even be caught up in ‘the spirit of the season’… There was some serious pressure on one of the Muslims here at work to participate in a ‘seasonal’ White Elephant exchange, even though the idea directly offends her. Made me sick to my stomach. They finally moved the date around enough to dissociate it with Xmas, but it was still ‘tis the season’ kind of stuff, and that makes it NOT her deal. Very frustrating. She tried to escape a bunch of different ways, but her only real escape (even with some of us backing her up) would be to call in sick that day. Some choice. I hadn’t really thought about how prevalent this pattern is, but from some of the posts, I can see that it IS a prevalent pattern. And here I was, thinking that most people just let people be about holidays. (okay, big ol’ blind spot on that one) The “WE are all having a good time, why can’t you join us; don’t be a party pooper” routine IS offensive. Kinda reminds me of people pressuring my mom to eat lasagna made with meat, even though she is a spiritual piscetarian. (“It won’t hurt you, come on, you eat fish, what’s the difference?” - to which she replies when pressed: “If it was cooked with human baby ‘meat’, would you eat it if I said ‘you eat beef, what’s the difference?’ back to you?” In other words, YOU don’t get to choose what offends ME on a spiritual basis.)
So, what to do about the Santa in school thing? (since I don’t think we will succeed in proving to anyone that santa is a purely secular figure - good points on both sides, leaving it still arguable, from my perspective)
IMHO, the strict application of absolute rules seems to miss the point, and doesn’t solve the problem. Kids are being excluded by the absolute application of Santa to classrooms. Some families see Santa (and other Xmas stuff) as religious, some see it as secular, so excluding it on religion basis only ‘works’ for some people - even if you don’t BELIEVE that Santa is non-religious, there are clearly people who DO feel that Santa has nothing to do with religion. And I think their PERCEPTION is truthful, for them and their practice.
IMHO, I think that kids would also not gain from absolute exclusion of everything from the classroom. But you can’t cover everything, so how to pick and choose? I suggest we pick and choose based on what (or, rather, WHO) is IN that classroom already. My son’s school (Montessori) strongly encourages parents to come in around the time of whatever celebrations they participate in, and share with the class… bring in some traditional food, show pictures and tell stories about what they do, talk about the meaning of the celebration. ALL YEAR LONG. (Not just around the ‘popular American holiday seasons’.) That means that every class would NOT have an identical set of customs to explore, instead each class would have a different experience EVERY YEAR, and that many kids would end up seeing that there are loads of things THEY don’t do that look like fun. Might teach a different perspective on Xmas, no? A bit more flexible application of the process to the individual level? HORRORS! A flexible education system, what is THAT? Next thing you know, we’ll be teaching situational ethics!!! NOOOOOOoooooooooo! (sorry, the absolutism in public school classrooms bugs me sometimes)
Generic “what all the world celebrates” is interesting, but not enlightening, and it is usually applied when WE (that is, american majority) are celebrating something ourselves. It smacks of idle curiosity, not genuine interest. “I’m having a peanut butter sandwich, what are you eating?” What our class celebrates - that being what each member of our class celebrates, ALL YEAR LONG - THAT would have been meaningful to me as a kid. And I’m thrilled that my son will be exposed to even more variety than I was (though I was caught flat-footed when my son started sprinking Hindi words in with the French and English… HELP, I need a crash course in toddler-level Hindi! How do you say ‘I’m sad’??)
I bet it helps that my son’s school is VERY mixed ethnicity/culture/national-origin. I’m not sure how it would work for a class where one kid is the ‘different one’ and the rest all have a unified practice (unless you could pull out the differences between the individual family traditions, which DO vary quite a bit, ski-lodges notwithstanding). Still might be worth a try.
At the very least, schools should cover celebrations all year long. I keep finding out about Jewish celebrations I never heard of before… and probably because they don’t fall in the time frame where I have been taught to think about holidays! Mea culpa on not looking for them the rest of the year (“I’m having tuna salad on wheat…”) though I know more about the celebrations of cultures I have studied in depth. Fortunately some of our friends are willing to invite us to many of their celebrations, all year, so we are getting a better education in Jewish traditions, at least.
I think you are incorrect here. It is my understanding that Christmas has become relatively popular in Japan in the post-war era, even though the country’s Christian population remains quite small, and that large numbers of people who are not Christian celebrate the holiday there as a purely secular event. Doing a web search on google for “Christmas in Japan” turns up quite a few pages about how Christmas is celebrated there, though I will admit the ones I looked at were not very scholarly and did not have hard data on what percentage of the non-Christian population of the country celebrates the holiday.
Jeez, REDTAIL, that quite a lot of hositily you’ve got there. Here; have an egg nog.
I am well-aware that the feelings of non-Christians toward Christmas varies from “let’s join right in!” to “if I hear one WORD associated with The Holiday That Shall Not Be Named, I’m going postal.” I’m also pretty confident of which camp you’re in. But, then, I never made any gross generalizations about how non-Christians view Christmas, except to admit that the omnipresence of it (to use ADAM YAX’S term) must be annoying to some. It seemed to me to not need saying that the degree of annoyance must vary by individual.
I never said this.
I CERTAINLY never said THIS.
Third time wrong. The point is that you should recognize that there is a vast difference between people who intentionally irritate just for the sake of irritating you, and people who incidentally irritate you simply by pursuing their own interests and traditions.
This is nonsense. The question of whether Santa is okay in our schools is obviously akin to the question of whether prayer is okay in our schools, but the “attitude” you suspect of others is not. You have no constitutional right to be free of “attitudes” you dislike.
A “sentiment” is a feeling. If I do not have that “sentiment,” and I do not, then I will not be conveying it. You obviously believe this is what (and how) I think, but since it is not, I must conclude that the problem is how you understand those feelings (or how I convey them) and not the feelings themselves.
I can absolutely see why non-Christians might have a problem with the pervasiveness of Christmas. I just don’t see a solution to it, since the vast majority of your neighbors celebrate it.
Blah, blah, blah. A bad analogy for the reasons given above.
This is interesting. What would you suggest we do?
Why am I not surprised by this? You seem like precisely the sort of person who would take offense at something so obviously NOT intended to offend.
Sez you. Why does the age of the transition have anything to do with it, as long as we agree the transition has been made? And it’s centuries, not decades in any event.
So you want to dictate how the rest of us celebrate Christmas just because you choose not to? On what grounds could you possibly take it upon yourself to do this?
But you don’t do this now . . . why?
Oh, baloney. As several people have already posted, many people in America celebrate Christmas as a secular, not a religious, holiday. Many more celebrate it as a hybrid. Again, who are you to judge how each of us chooses to celebrate the holidays?
This presumes, of course, that Christmas is in all cases and in all ways a Christian holiday, and that all the trappings associated with it – wreaths, carols, the whole nine – are Christian as well. In other words, it begs the whole question of this thread.
Had that gun to your collective head, huh?
Well, the choice I would make, if it were my kids, would be to refuse to go along with the trend and to refuse to allow my kids to be treated like “freaks.” As I’ve already said, this is to me a better argument for banning Santa anyway.
And see, I do. Precisely because most religions and cultures do not have a “generic winter festival.” What they have are their own holidays and traditions, and to try to amalgamize those religious holidays into some “winterfest” that doesn’t really exist in any of them IMO does a disservice to all of them. The closest thing we have to a “generic winter festival” is the American secular Christmas, and you apparently don’t like it because it is simultaneously too religious (a Christian holiday) and too secular (an “orgy of greed”). I’m at a loss to imagine what you might approve of, if anything.
Who argued in favor of this?
Nonsense. The idea that if you cannot teach everything about a subject you should not teach it at all, is ridiculous. We learn about major governmental systems and major countries and major cultures first, and more esoteric ones second. I see no problem with alerting children to the religions of the world in a similar manner. It’s far preferable, IMO, to leaving them in ignorance of all religion because we cannot cover Zoroasterism.
As a “modern Christian,” I can’t imagine how I could avoid it, since even my celebrating my holiday in my own way appears to you to be forcing my religion on you. To be frank, that’s your problem, not mine. I’m sure you will find in that the exact degree of sympathy that you appear to extend to my celebration of Christmas.
And a Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I won’t be back until Sunday, so everyone have fun.
jmullaney - Yeah, my sister and I tried that, with some very poor results. I ended up ‘winning’ more-or-less, but it’s still a battle every year with the rest of the family. Especially since I married and have those other families to deal with! I’ve tried that with other people, too. Sounds like you’ve had about as much luck as I.
Ptahlis - pbbbtthhhhhhhhh! No, I think I mentioned those, they’re just irritating. I can (almost) survive that. Mostly I refuse to go to any public place with music after the first couple of weeks.
I don’t actually stay pissed off for 3 months, y’know. It comes and it goes.
Some of the comments in this thread did set me off though. I’m better now. Really.
[sub]<Damn, I knew I should have taken my medication this morning!>[/sub]
Kimstu -
I wasn’t referring to civil liberties, per se (as in those rights guaranteed by our Constitution).
I was referring to what I consider my right to expect basic courtesy from other people, as in not being told I’ve ‘got no right to get offended’ after someone’s gotten snotty with me because they don’t like my attitude about Christmas. Or see Jodi’s party analogy again. She essentially said that people who don’t participate don’t have the right to expect common courtesy, much less any attempt at accommodation. That is a very common attitude.
I was comparing the similarity in attitudes between adherents of the two things (Christmas & school prayer), not the actual things themselves. However, I do think the two are pretty damn close when you restrict the arena to the public schools; I believe the courts have agreed with that, if I’m not mistaken.
To the best of my knowledge: A dreidel is considered a religious symbol. It represents a particular story from the Torah and is played in remembrance of that event. I’m not sure about the Purim noisemaker, but I think it is the same sort of thing; I’ll have to check on that (unless some Jewish reader beats me to it: HINT HINT). As far as the food items - I never claimed that everything associated with Christmas was a religious symbol. Snow, for instance, is pretty much a generic symbol for winter that gets used because it is a winter holiday. FTR, I don’t think that ham is a symbol of Easter, either. Passover lamb, maybe. And DON’T ever mention gefilte fish in my presence again, 'kay? <shudder>
I still think that Santa, aka Saint Nicholas, aka Father Christmas, and so on, as one of the MAJOR symbols of a religious holiday should be considered religious. The only argument I’ve heard against this is that there is some creature called ‘secular Christmas’ and Santa represents that holiday rather than the ‘religious Christmas’ holiday - but that idea is VERY new, and certainly came about well after the holiday AND the symbol were widely known as Christian and were legally and culturally entrenched. That idea has really only been developed in the past few decades, as a response to non-Christian protests against being forced to celebrate Christian holidays. Or sometimes, as an excuse why non-Christians could celebrate a Christian holiday ;). (FWIW, some ultra-conservative Christians have fastened onto it as well, because they so resent the commercialization of their religious holiday.)
Let’s see:
There is (at least) one after-work office Christmas party every year. While I am technically not forced to attend, failure to attend is considered to show poor attitude, lack of team spirit, so on and so forth, and as such can well affect my performance reviews, salary, and opportunities. The fact that I don’t celebrate Christmas is NOT considered a valid reason to ditch, IME.
There is also an office gift exchange every year. Ditto.
There is an office potluck lunch - attendance mandatory (unless you called in sick or something). Although I must give them credit. They no longer ask everyone to pray (a nonsectarian but undoubtedly Christian prayer), since someone mentioned that they could easily (as a state entity) be sued for mandating attendance at a religious function. <Who, me? Not exactly. Someone else brought it up, I just made sure that the right people overheard the conversation.>
On the other hand, no one understood when one of our faculty members (non-Christian from another country) complained about state funds, equipment, supplies, and employee time being used to disseminate a particularly icky Christmas story (something about the Candy Cane representing the Blood of Christ - you wanna tell me again that ain’t a religious symbol?).
Although it’s not quite as bad in the various community organizations I belong to, (mostly because they don’t have any leverage with which to enforce their wishes), the same attitude is very much present.
Admittedly, it may be somewhat easier for adults of another religion - at least most folks can get a clue eventually when faced with the “I’m Jewish, we don’t do Christmas” concept. It may take them a few tries, but they can catch on. Since I don’t have that excuse, it’s probably harder for me, because I ALWAYS get the ‘well, since it’s not actually against your religion if you don’t have one, you shouldn’t have a problem’ line.
I will grant that some of this may be due to my location. People here are simply not used to dealing with anyone different from themselves. Doesn’t make it much easier, though.
However, I still maintain that people who celebrate Christmas simply do not realize the amount and extent of pressure which is applied. When you don’t really mind going along, you don’t get pressured, do you?
The reason I detest the ‘secular Christmas’ concept is for much the same reasons that Jodi outlined in regards to school usage of Santa. It may have replaced Thanksgiving as the ultimate American holiday of overconsumption and crass consumerism, being more devoted to the Almighty Dollar than tomorrow is, and that’s my primary problem with it. I realize that to many people it is a family holiday with an entirely different set of connotations. I don’t usually go around preaching the gospel of BIG BAD CHRISTMAS.
It’s not my fault - y’all made me do it!
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<Whew! So far, so good. Nobody’s gotten too offended or really creamed me. Yet, anyway. Thanks, guys!>
Somebody need a visit from 3 ‘spirits’- why don’t you just say “Christmas is a Humbug”, and get over it. Have a meaningful & happy Holiday season, anyway- mr scrooge
sDimbert: I think you might agree that I know quite a bit about religion- at least Judeo-Christian. There is no “Santa Claus” anywhere in our Christian faith. He is in no way (nor ever was) a religous symbol- please trust me on this. “Saint Nicholas” is, indeed, a minor Christian mythological personage- but he is not the same as Santa Claus.
However, I beleive the 'dredel" is a once religous item, that is now somewhat secularized. And definately, the chocolate/gold foil coins, used for “gelt” have also been secularized. Yes, neither had big time religous meaning to the Jews (unless the dredel was once the Urim & Thurim), but even if by a stretch St. Nicholas has morphed into Santa Claus- they are/were about as “religous” as St. Nicholas is/was.
redtail:I was referring to what I consider my right to expect basic courtesy from other people, as in not being told I’ve ‘got no right to get offended’ after someone’s gotten snotty with me because they don’t like my attitude about Christmas.
Okay, I see what you’re saying. Yes, you certainly do have a “right” in the non-constitutional sense not to have other people be rude to you.
*Or see Jodi’s party analogy again. She essentially said that people who don’t participate don’t have the right to expect common courtesy, much less any attempt at accommodation. That is a very common attitude. *
Hmmm, well, I think that we can’t really determine the offensiveness of the “if you don’t choose to come to the party, don’t complain about the music” attitude unless we know how loud the music is. You interpreted that analogy to mean “we will cheerfully blast you with several hundred decibels far into the night because your comfort doesn’t mean anything to us compared to our opportunity to have fun.” I took it to mean “don’t lurk around in the hallway looking for excuses to make a complaint because you resent our having a party that you don’t want to join.” I think we’re actually all in agreement that reasonable levels of celebration should be gracefully tolerated by those who don’t participate, and that refusals to participate should be gracefully accepted by those having the party. Nobody likes insensitive boors or oversensitive whiners.
To the best of my knowledge: A dreidel is considered a religious symbol. It represents a particular story from the Torah and is played in remembrance of that event. I’m not sure about the Purim noisemaker, but I think it is the same sort of thing; I’ll have to check on that (unless some Jewish reader beats me to it: HINT HINT).
Hmm, yeah, I’d like to see an authoritative opinion on that too. My understanding is that it was a medieval toy that got a Torah story grafted onto it at some point. —Just remembered that my computer is attached to a search engine; from a Hanukkah website:
I still think that Santa, aka Saint Nicholas, aka Father Christmas, and so on, as one of the MAJOR symbols of a religious holiday should be considered religious. The only argument I’ve heard against this is that there is some creature called ‘secular Christmas’ and Santa represents that holiday rather than the ‘religious Christmas’ holiday - but that idea is VERY new, and certainly came about well after the holiday AND the symbol were widely known as Christian and were legally and culturally entrenched.
Fine; customs are not automatically illegitimate just because they’re new, and every custom in human history was new at some point. I agree that “secular Christmas” is a pretty recent invention, but the contemporary Santa Claus definitely belongs to it. He is not attached to the Christian religion in any way except by having morphed out of a medieval Christian saint (much as many medieval Christian saints such as Saint Bridget originally morphed out of ancient pagan deities, but don’t try telling a Christian (well, a non-Jack-Chick Christian) that saints are just pagan gods unless you’re looking to get five in the mush).
Santa Claus is a toymaking elf who runs a large nonprofit artisan collective of elves, assisted by his helpmeet Mrs. Claus, at the North Pole, whence he makes his Christmas Eve journeys to deliver gifts by reindeer sleigh and chimney. Not a sniff of any of these Christmas symbols will you find in any Christian church or religious service as part of the celebration of the religious festival centering on the Incarnation of Jesus Christ via the Virgin Birth. Santa Claus may be a silly, hokey, overcommercialized arriviste, but he is part of IMO a very important effort to preserve an important winter festival of good will and good cheer (which is actually descended from the pagan Yule and Saturnalia as much if not more than from the celebration of the birth of Christ) in a way that can be shared by lots of Americans regardless of their theological beliefs (though only, I hasten to add, if they want to participate! :)).
*There is (at least) one after-work office Christmas party every year. While I am technically not forced to attend, failure to attend is considered to show poor attitude, lack of team spirit, so on and so forth, and as such can well affect my performance reviews, salary, and opportunities. The fact that I don’t celebrate Christmas is NOT considered a valid reason to ditch, IME.
There is also an office gift exchange every year. Ditto.
There is an office potluck lunch - attendance mandatory (unless you called in sick or something). Although I must give them credit. They no longer ask everyone to pray (a nonsectarian but undoubtedly Christian prayer), since someone mentioned that they could easily (as a state entity) be sued for mandating attendance at a religious function. *
I completely agree that this is disgusting. But, to borrow a much-harped-upon theme from Miss Manners, the fundamental problem you have here is not so much Christians forcing their religious observances upon others, as an employer forcing pseudo-friendly socializing upon its employees. This bastard form of entertainment, as Miss Manners frequently points out (although without using the word “bastard”), is really the worst of both worlds. If you were having a legitimate office gathering for a legitimate business purpose, everybody would be required to attend but it would not involve participating in social or religious customs that some people don’t care to participate in. If, on the other hand, you were having a genuine social event with acquaintances and/or friends, it might have a religious or holiday theme that you disapproved of, but you would be under no obligation to attend. This sort of artificial “let’s all pretend we’re just a big happy friendly group of partygoers but don’t forget that the boss is also watching you” makes both Miss Manners and me puke (although she would not use the word “puke”). Your real problem here isn’t Christmas per se, it’s mandatory office “socializing”, although I agree that the problem is at its worst at Christmastime.
*On the other hand, no one understood when one of our faculty members (non-Christian from another country) complained about state funds, equipment, supplies, and employee time being used to disseminate a particularly icky Christmas story (something about the Candy Cane representing the Blood of Christ - you wanna tell me again that ain’t a religious symbol?). *
Yes, I do. Just because some imaginative people have managed to attach religious symbolism (whether icky or, as in the case of the dreidel, not so icky) to a holiday symbol doesn’t make it a religious symbol. There are no candy canes in Christian celebrations of the birth of Christ, any more than there are Santas.
The reason I detest the ‘secular Christmas’ concept is for much the same reasons that Jodi outlined in regards to school usage of Santa. It may have replaced Thanksgiving as the ultimate American holiday of overconsumption and crass consumerism, being more devoted to the Almighty Dollar than tomorrow is, and that’s my primary problem with it.
I agree with a lot of your concerns, but I think that we (meaning we Christmasizers secular or religious, not conscientious objectors such as yourself) can manage to fix that problem, or at least make a dent in it, without throwing out the whole concept of secular Christmas.
[hijack] In that spirit, I offer my personal solution to the Fruitcake Problem: namely, what do you give the acquaintances and not-so-close friends with whom you don’t do a full-scale present exchange, and who in a less enlightened era were saddled with miniature fruitcakes that nobody wanted? (These days it’s apt to be banana bread or a plate of Christmas cookies or something else neither very exciting nor very good for you.)
I decided that around the holidays, what people really need is not more sugar and fat and improbably colored crystallized fruits but some decent food. I buy crates of those quart- and pint-size canning jars (they’re very cheap!) and make up a few gallons of good lentil soup or corn chowder or spaghetti sauce or something else that’s sturdy yet tasty and suitable for vegetarians and non-vegs alike, and freeze a dozen jars or so. I also make several batches of basic French bread dough and freeze that too. Buy a few pounds of pasta if I made spaghetti sauce. Then a day or so before Distribution Day sometime in mid-December I make some good-keeping vegetable dish, usually marinated; the night before, I thaw the dough and bake a dozen mini-loaves as well as a tray or two of brownies (well, you need some fat and sugar!). Get little colored paper sacks with handles from the drugstore, line 'em with tissue paper, divvy up the food, tie up the handles with a ribbon and a little card, hitch up the reindeer and ho-ho-ho! No complaints so far! Very little expense, not really that much work, and a real lifesaver for the harried holiday housekeeper. Use with my blessing. [/hijack]
Eeew! Sorry, the “Hanukkah website” I quoted was, I later noticed, actually on a site by “Messianic Jews” (= Jews for Jesus), who are not IMO the most reliable source for information about Judaism. Here is a slightly different story from what appears to be a better source:
Similar story at the World Zionist Organization. I still don’t think this makes the dreidel a “Jewish religious symbol”, though.
God.
I leave for a few hours and this thread grows like a weed! You know what?
Forget it.
No, not really. But I have been doing some thinking and I’ve decided that I can answer my own question now, so I don’t need your help anymore. Thanks, though!
Daniel, thanks for your clarifications regarding ol’ St. Nick - as usual your comments are accessible and to the point. As far as the rest of you are concerned, go ahead and fight with one another if you want. I’ve got turkey to eat!
You see, I’ve begun to understand what a “secular Christmas” can mean. And, I think I’ve identified a few Jewish symbols that have evolved beyond purely religious meaning. It just takes me a while to wrap my head around some things. Oh well. Grokking is.
IMHO and FTR (I love acronyms), I don’t think a dreidel is really a religious symbol. The reason Chaunkkah isn’t considered an important religious holiday is that it’s not mentioned in the Tanakh. Chanukkah comes from the Book of Maccabees. The only bible that includes Maccabees is the Catholic bible - Jews never canonized it, and I guess Martin Luther threw it out. I unfortunately do not have a Catholic bible handy, so perhaps someone who does can skim through it and see if it mentions spinning tops.
Also FTR, the letters on a dreidel are Nun Gimel Heh Shin, which are an acronym (!) for the phrase translated as “a Great Miracle Happened There.” (In Israel, dreidels read Nun Gimel Heh Peh, for “a Great Miracle Happened Here.”)
This is a total hijack, and I apologize. But I would be interested in what someone with a Catholic bible has to say.
This is why i just can’t stand sdimbert. He is more reasonable & adult than most of us here, including me, and will admit freely when we have, if not entirely convinced him, at least weakened his antipathy. How do you argue with a guy that is so damn reasonable?
Kyla- much to my shame, I do not have a complete version of Maccabees with me. I have only a couple of commentaries. However, some experts think that it is just possible that the dredle has something to do with the Urim & Thummin, which were some sort of (we guess) augery items used by the priesthood, and appear to be nessesary if you have a Temple- thus if the Temple was rededicated, they would need to have them. (And it is just a guess that they may have played a part in when & how, and thus passed into the celebration).
I wonder if any of the herititary Preisthood now know exactly what the Urim & Thummin* are- if so they are keeping the secret pretty good. If not- will there be a problem, when they rededicate the new Temple?
*translating does not help, unless you can tell me that “lights” & “perfections” is helpful to you.
All you ski-maven dads out there, Christian or other, can now argue for spending Christmas on the slopes on the grounds that it’s a secular national custom. But please, let the kids finish the chapter they’re on, okay?
