Share Christmas and other traditions
OK. That’s enough of us tripping over each other trying to be appropriate about Christmas in our schools — or just about Christmas generally.
It’s December, and along with icy roads and snow warnings come our first Christmas examples of politically correct zealotry that almost defeated common sense.
An Ottawa school decided to abandon the annual Christmas concert in favour of a non-denominational winter concert to be held in February.
“Enough,” said the adults, and the principal received more than 300 emails from across Canada. The kinder ones called her a Grinch and accused her of cancelling Christmas.
A town council in Quebec, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, changed its mind about outlawing Christmas displays and gave the order to have a nativity scene re-installed outside the municipal library after people stepped up and reminded the mayor and city fathers that in Canada, yes, Christmas is Christmas, always has been and don’t mess with it.
Canadians clearly still believe at least in a secularized idea of Christmas as a time to unite in peace and goodwill — religious origins or not.
Repudiating Christmas as politically incorrect or potentially offensive to someone somewhere flies in the face of any understanding of who Canadians are.
Something like two-thirds of the population report an affiliation, if not church attendance, with one brand or another of a Christian religion. There’s no denying that Christmas, historically at least, is based on a Christian tradition, but the fact we are a multi-ethnic, multi-religious culture famous for its tolerance and proud of its cultural, ethnic and religious diversity defeats any attempt to convert “Christmas” to the execrable (and now fortunately outdated) “Xmas.”
Each major religion practised in Canada has, in addition to its own system of beliefs, its own way of marking times in the year as special. Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews, Christians, Muslims and other belief systems enrich the religious and cultural multiplicity of Canada.
A StatCan survey identified more than a million Canadians as Muslim — that’s about 3.2 per cent of the population that celebrates Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice. Hindus represent about 1.5 per cent, Sikhs 1.4 per cent, Buddhists 1.1 per cent and Jews one per cent.
Even at one per cent, Hanukkah is probably still the most widely and publicly celebrated non-Christian holy event in Canada.
In 2016, there were 1,673,785 Aboriginal people in Canada, accounting for 4.9 per cent of the total population.
Thankfully, even in a country with a deeply embedded Christmas tradition, it is still appropriate for teachers to talk not only about the variety of cultural traditions and celebrations we accept but also how, historically, Christmas has been celebrated in Canada for almost 500 years.
In Canadian schools, it’s OK for teachers to talk to non-Hindu kids about Diwali or Holi and how practising Buddhists celebrate Hanamatsuri or Parinirvana.
That’s not proselytizing, that’s not endangering the secular requirement for public schools, that’s teaching about why Canada is a great place and how people of different beliefs can live together in peace.
So there is yet hope for Christmas. Marketing specialist Robin Ritchie, an assistant professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, says there is a renewed sense that it’s acceptable again to use the term “Christmas.”
“Like a lot of these things, pendulums swing and then they swing back,” he said. “To some extent, this is a correction for a well-intentioned effort to try and be accommodating and respectful of other faiths and cultures.”
The paradox is that if any force on earth can regain acceptance of Christmas in Canada as being OK, it will be the Christmas profit bonanza.
“There is a sense that Christians, and mainstream Canadian society,” said Ritchie, “have been given permission by a lot of other faiths to use the word ‘Christmas.’ ”
He added: “They’re saying: We have holidays, too, and we’re perfectly fine with you calling this Christmas because for the most part that’s what it is.”
So why is Christmas in Canada somehow in danger of being politically incorrect? Why do we need to tap-dance around nearly 500 years of Canadian Christmas tradition?
Snap out of it folks, and “Merry Christmas.”