Keep Santa Out of School!!!

[Wrath]

redtail, I can empathize with your office party problem, and thank you, kimstu, for your Miss Manners’ take on the issue.

Just use the old stand by: “I am visiting family out of town that weekend,” and listen to the gossip on monday.

I had a conversation once with a Born-Again Christian. Now, I am not totally sure if this type of religious belief is “organized” with its own church (if it is, someone please let me know), but I asked him what he and his family were doing for Christmas. He said they did nothing, no celebrations of any kind, similar to Jehova’s Witnesses.

I suddenly realized the cruelty of Christmas. I looked at him incredulously, and asked why he did not celebrate the birth of Christ with his family (he has a wife and 3 sons). He said “I celebrate the birth of Christ in me every day.” Wonderful, I thought, but have your children had that experience? His “born-agian-ism” began in his adulthood.

I felt deeply for his kids, who must see the droves of other Christian families celebrating holidays(along with birthday parties, weddings, et al.) and wonder why can’t we?. Thanks to his religious experience, he deprived his children some of the joy that he was given by his parents (who were, and are, celebrants of holidays). And then I wondered if they were offended or indifferent when Santa’s visage graced the halls of school.

So, the quandry: celebrate in the face of those like redtail, or be more respectful and keep them more private. Wish others the joys of the season, or keep to myself and hold back courteous pleasantries. Or, enjoy life and to hell with the humbugs. The wish to not celebrate is a choice, just like the wish to not attend the office party.

[Nessy]

This is purely an issue for the Religious Right.
The “other side” is that since Santa is folklore and not part of any religion, despite his origin, he has become a symbol for the non-religious part of the holidays.
The humanist part.
Since the churches are now banned from their coercive prayers in school, the resent him. It’s that simple. The “religious” angle is an excuse. If prayer were allowed, they would embrace him again.

[Dr_Paprika]

Met a small boy today - a sinister child with a stern jaw and a brooding hot eye - who had just mailed his letter to Santa Claus. “I told him what my minimum demands were,” he said, “and I’m giving him until the 25th to come across - or else”. I blinked, and asked him to explain. He continued: “Claus has been in the driver’s seat too long; everybody has always lickspittled to him and made him think he is a bigshot; well, the time has come for Organizationl we thinks we can’t get along without him, but we’ll show him he can’t get along without us. He expects a year’s good conduct for a few gew-gaws at Christmas; from now on there’ll have to be Christmas every month, and an eight hour day for good conduct, with all statuatory holidays and two weeks vacation in the summer; Claus has been exploiting us.” He marched off, and as he turned to give me a knowing leer he inadvertently fell down an open manhole. I watched it for a few minute but he did not reappear. Walked home slowly, thinking about Fate.

From *The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks[/i} by Robertson Davies

[Kyla]

Jodi-

I was thinking about your comments on ingenousness today, and although we have sort of left that behind, I’d like to clarify what I meant anyway. I feel sort of bad right now, because I think what I said didn’t really come across right.

If it’s Chanukkah and someone wishes me a happy Chanukkah, I love it. I would never think that person was being disingenous.

However, what usually happens is the following scenario:
Person: Hey, merry Christmas! Oh, wait, you’re Jewish, aren’t you? Uhh, happy Chanukkah!
Me: Thanks. Have a nice holiday.

Whereupon I glance at the calendar and note that Chanukkah ended two weeks ago (plus or minus). I don’t really think poorly of this person, but it definitely makes me feel left out. I mean, not only am I weird for not celebrating the “important” holiday, my own holiday is so insignificant that this Person doesn’t even bother finding out when it is. Whether or not this is the Person’s intent or not is irrelevant; this is how this makes me feel. Re the OP: it’s not the place of public schools to make their kids feel like this. That it happens at all is inevitable, really, but a public school should have no place in making a portion of their students feel like outsiders for a month every year.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

*Originally posted by RickJay *
**

*Originally posted by The Tim *
I know atheists who have more Christmas decoration than christians. They like the elves, santas, and so on. Its a materialistic holiday of food, folk and fun. The modern image of Santa is a creation of Coke. First appeared on Coke cans sometime in the 30s or 40s.

Commander Fortune has already pointed out that Snopes has an entry on this, but have you never heard the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” a.k.a. “The Night Before Christmas”? It describes Santa more or less as we know him today:

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes – how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

This was written when Abraham Lincoln was too young to vote.
**

Well now…as I read the excerpt above, I note that he seems to have all the traditional hallmarks regarding the white beard and the sack. But if we objectively consider the phrases “jolly old elf”, “droll little mouth”, and “little round belly”, it seems that this image of SC is more like a garden gnome than anything else. So maybe the Coke people really did come up with the image we know today.