Christmas office parties with a diverse workforce

[mids2019]

Work forces have a diverse range of religions within the workforce. In my role I now see that there is maybe a little.questioning of how to frame the Christmas do as Christmas is a festival originated by Christians and so may feel a little exclusive given we do not have a departmental organised Eid or Divali celebration. Should the office Christmas do be reframed as the end of year party slightly divorced from Christmas as a celebratory period? (The office do also brings question of whether an alcohol fee venue may be appropriate which can get a bit contentious.)

I don’t celebrate Christmas, it’s my choice due to my personal beliefs.

I also don’t insist that my workplace or school change anything to suit me, and of course I enjoy having the bank holidays and all the lights up around town.

I do find however there is a certain expectation that I have to attend the work Christmas social. This is the one thing I would like to change. Religious or not, I am not interested in spending my very precious time off at a place where I’ll probably get served roasted pepper for dinner and watch everyone around me getting progressively drunk. I shouldn’t be snubbed or made to feel I’m not one of the team for this reason (and this is often the case).

To be honest, I think I’d feel quite similar if it was a summer work-do and the same situation existed where I have bad food options and people around me are getting drunk. There is no reason why I would enjoy that atmosphere at any time of year.

My current workplace doesn’t do a Christmas do, but happens to be taking us out to celebrate a recent success. It’ll be to a place where food is also good for me, and no one will be getting drunk (not because of me, it’s just the type of place I work at). So I’m very happy to join in with this, and I also like my work colleagues enough to spend this extra time with them.

You're really overthinking this. Have you actually spoken to any of your colleagues from other cultures because it doesn't sound like it.

I once had a number of Muslim colleagues in one place of work. They joined in with the Christmas festivities, including helping with the nativity and joining for the Christmas dinner. It wasn't a halal place so they ate veggie. A couple of them were veggie anyway and yet they still came to a restaurant with meat and just chose what worked for them.

I've also worked in other places where there were a lot of non Brits but who celebrated Christmas with us and in their own culture.

Christmas isn't a British festival but it's one Brits do tend in the majority to celebrate one way or another. It's not foisting a religion on anyone.

Respect your own culture I would say. Otherwise, others would impose theirs on yours.

It's just a hallmark holiday these days.

"I do find however there is a certain expectation that I have to attend the work Christmas social. This is the one thing I would like to change. Religious or not, I am not interested in spending my very precious time off at a place where I’ll probably get served roasted pepper for dinner and watch everyone around me getting progressively drunk. I shouldn’t be snubbed or made to feel I’m not one of the team for this reason (and this is often the case)."

This is true, that's why I don't think such an intense focus on making everything "inclusive" is always helpful. It causes resentment in the people who do celebrate who feel they have to adjust their traditions and "others" people who don't wish to participate...some of those "others" will be happy to join in with no accommodations necessary but others would prefer not to be an involved at all without having focus drawn to them, and that's ok. Not everybody has to be involved in everything.

As I said earlier, I worked in a very diverse town, and a good proportion of the staff were Muslim.
Our Christmas event was very much 'opt in' and was never at a halal place. But at the early planning stage there was always a sign in the staff room asking people to suggest a venue, and there was never a halal suggestion.

I didn't go to the myself for the last few years ago so can't speak with any authority or accuracy, but certainly I recall my Muslim team members attending in the past.

"I do find however there is a certain expectation that I have to attend the work Christmas social.

This is true, that's why I don't think such an intense focus on making everything "inclusive" is always helpful.

I agree with both of these - there are many reasons why people wouldn't want to attend and they should all be respected -- but that necessitates a sweeping cultural change in attitude, which probably won't happen because there's a lot of systemic ideology at play. For example neurodivergent people suffer a lot of subtle discrimination (eg being passed over for promotions from being seen as not a team player), mothers of young children and single parents suffer discrimination that has more to do with bias than actual work performance.

True inclusivity is about accepting that people are different and allowing them to be different and supporting their needs, not forcing them to conform.

And yes, stuff like participating or not participating in traditional cultural events are often (whether overtly or not) used as way to gauge if someone is "like us" and there's a known link there with systemic racism.

A lot of people have absolutely no idea of the amount of anger and hostility that comes out when you politely say "sorry I don't celebrate Christmas because I'm Jewish." Sure, some people are fine with it. But you'd be surprised how many people are very much not fine with it in a range of different ways, when it has nothing to do with them and doesn't affect them at all.

There's also the risk of being othered and I know MN tends to pooh pooh all this stuff, or act like it's all woke virtue signalling, but othering has genuine issues. I mean I'm British; I regard myself as 100% British. My maternal family have been in the UK for 130 years and my paternal family have been in the UK for centuries. I don't "choose to live here", I was born here to British parents. I'm just as British as anyone else. The fact I'm Jewish doesn't make me any less British. But it's obvious both from comments here and ones I've had in real life that some people don't regard British people to be properly British if they happen to also be Jewish, which is just racist. That kind of mentality needs to stop, and no amount of re-naming Christmas parties is going to help, it just makes things worse.