There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays

‘Tis the season to complain about the secularization of Christmas. Every year there is a spate of articles and essays and letters to the editor about the disappearance of manger scenes from schools and public open spaces. I say “bah humbug.” There is a definite public good in the separation of church and state. I like that my children learned about a number of religious holidays in school; they know more about Hanukkah than I do. Kwanzaa has always confused me a little but I can get through a social conversation about it without looking like an uneducated fool. Public schools can discuss the holidays, provided they cover all of them equally. This is often manifested in the books that are read to the students – one on Hanukkah, one on Christmas, one on Kwanzaa. I was volunteering in the elementary school one day when I overheard two teachers talking about this. One said she was considering skipping the Christmas book since she was sure all the kids were familiar with it. The other told her to cover all her bases to avoid any potential complaints.

The all-encompassing multicultural exposure that the kids get allows them to be more understanding about the lives of their future co-workers, neighbors, possible in-laws, and friends. It also lets them learn more about themselves, but only if a religious identity is introduced at home. When I was a girl we learned Christmas carols in music class at school and no non-Christian holiday celebrations were ever acknowledged, not in December, not at any other time of the year. I’d never heard of Rosh Hashanah until I moved to Pennsylvania. Everyone was the same, even the Catholic kids.

My children are learning that they are of the Christian faith and within that a Protestant and within that a particular denomination. We’ve been singing Christmas carols at home, on the sofa by the tree, as a family, no two of us in the same key, none of us in any recognizable key at all. They are learning that religion belongs in the home and the house of worship but that within public life all faiths are respected or are to be kept private. This is a good thing. It forces us as parents to think long and hard about what we want our children to identify with. We have to make a conscious choice about whether to go to holiday services or religious celebrations. We can no longer outsource the religious education of our children, and that is good for all of us. If we want the Christ back in Christmas we can’t expect the schools or Macys to put it there, nor should they. We aren’t a faith by default anymore.