I'm thinking that in the not too distant future the current Halloween party will be renamed the FALL Celebration, the December party (Christimas, Holiday etc.) will be renamed the WINTER Celebration, and the Valentine party will be moved to March and renamed the SPRING Celebration.
Thus no longer will the holidays be in the title of the celebration, but instead it will be season - and everyone that is not comfortable with a particular holidays - willl help us become better Americans and community members, helping us to come together to celebrate a season, not just a particular holiday.
That's what it's all about after all, coming together, to celebrate our diversity, and learning about each other and our cultures that are celebrated all year long.
We are allowed to have three parties per year - holiday (December - how convenient) Halloween and Valentines Day, that's it. While the majority of our school would normally celebrate Christmas, we do have a muslimm population, as well as a few children who are jewish, etc. I don't have a problem with it being called holiday. At least this way the ACLU stays home and the kids don't get penalized for grownups trying to play political games. That's what we have PTO for - JUST KIDDING!!!!!!!
Like the others, we don't officially use "Christmas" as part of the title of school activities. But, since the majority of our students celebrate Christmas, it gets used a lot verbally.
We have a pretty good mix of cultures, and I'm glad that we try to be aware of the cultural diversity of our school.
What personally drives me crazy is when political correctness goes overboard and people attempt to eliminate all references to the point its all generic. I WANT my child to know and respect the diversity of cultures and wonderful traditions of other people. For our winter PTO event (Holidays Around the World - formerly Breakfast with Santa), it now features a variety of cultural holidays and traditions (including Santa).
In our area, the parties that we formally referred to as "Chrismas Parties" are now referred to as "Winter Holiday Parties".
In fact our school district has published a calendar on the website that helps us all become more aware of the other holidays celebrated throughout our community.
We are trying to be more sensitive of the rich cultural diversity of our students, staff and the community, and have a better understanding and respect for beliefs of many individuals in the schools.
If your school is a "public" school, I'm surprised this issue is just now being raised. In the public schools my children have attended, they had holiday parties to be religiously neutral. Or politically correct. They were not allowed Halloween parties either. Now that my children are at a private international school we celebrate them all, and this school has a very large mix of nationalities, although we try to stick with more secular themes such as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. It's is important to understand that Americans are all different religions and I'm glad that the school system is being sensitive to that. :cool:
By the way, Christmas and Easter are not "American" holidays per se. They are religious holidays celebrated worldwide.
By no means is this to insult any one of any race or nationality, but I have a question for all of you.
This year we have a new family in our school they are Muslim.
Our principal now tells us that we CANNOT call our "Christmas" party just that. We now have to call it a "holiday" party because they do not celebrate "Christmas".
What do you call your "Christmas" or "Easter" party? Do any of you change your titles to "holiday" party?
I have mixed feelings about this. I believe that living in "America" that we as Americans celebrate Christmas & Easter. I do not want to disrespect the family in our school, but I don't feel it necessary to call it a Holiday party either.
I may receive a lot of slack for this, but when in America respect our culture. We are the melting pot of the world. THis is what makes the USA the greatest nation in the World.
I also feel that when we celebrate our holidays we should be able to call them what they are.
All in all, we should respect all cultures but I feel that we should not have to change our words to be politically correct.
