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.)

Santa Claus is

But the British have the older, non-Christian figure of Father Christmas, who is a manifestation of the pagan Green Man

So you can easily and pragmatically swing either way

if you want to take the "Christ" out, then call it Yuletide

Yeah because if one religion is not ok, appropriating other instead without doing any of the proper traditions would be fine....
Also polytheistic celebration would probably be worse than Christmas for some.

You don't get to randomly disown things from Christianity because of linguistic changes or denominational spats. He's part of the broad, sprawling, influential, sometimes coercive, diverse, adaptable, acquisitive Christian tradition.

How Calvinist Presbyterian!!

Wrong person!

How Calvinist Presbyterian!!

Well- I am generalising from my examples too! I'm pretty secular though (parents much more religious).

But I agree with other posters re the OP's post. I'd actually be surprised and more than slightly irritated if my workplace decided to cater to any sense of exclusion they assumed I had re Christmas parties and felt they had to tiptoe around me or change their language / description of what the party was for. That is poorly phrased, but hopefully my meaning makes sense.

Jesus was not white. He was not a colonial import.

Where does that leave your fun sponge plans OP?

The office Christmas party is not a religious event HTH.

Get a grip! Its a tradition in this country, cultural not just religious. If people don’t want to go fine its a choice. So sick of kill joys like you banning christmas! My hindu, jewish and muslim friends all do something for christmas be it gifts or get togethers!!!! And i am not white or christian. Ffs. Just throw a party, yes with booze for those who want it. Do you know where i live muslims own the off licences? Shocking! As grown adults can chose to drink or not. Sick of white woke do gooders.

This has reminded me of a couple of posts from previous years.

One poster was a recent convert to Judaism, she thought she would invite a couple of people round for drinks but found that every Jew she knew, including her rabbi had plans for Christmas day.

The other was someone whose family were coming to visit, but since she left home she had gradually brought some aspects of Xmas into her house, including a Xmas tree which her family would not approve of.

A MNers suggest she call it a Hanukkah bush.

OP

The essence of equality and diversity is giving everyone equal opportunities and celebrating diversity.

Maybe you could start to acknowledge other festivals in your work place but stop overthinking Christmas.

BTW you do know the major Christian holiday is at Easter not Christmas?

If you lived in India and your workplace was doing a Divali do where everybody finished work early, shared food and drink, danced to music and put lights up everywhere, and you were invited even though you're culturally Christian- would you feel upset or excluded...?

So you want to celebrate all cultures except Christianity? That's hardly inclusive is it?

Would you go to a Muslim country and expect them not to celebrate Eid as its not "inclusive"?

For a lot of people Christmas is now divorced from Christianity. But even if it wasn't, it is offensive to suggest that a Christian celebration needs to be sanitised in case it offends people of other religions.

Another example of supposed inclusivity actually being exclusive (with a side portion of white saviour/purity spiral).

I think it's entirely appropriate to call it by its older name, just as it's OK to say Father Christmas, or have a Christmas tree, or a Yule log (actual or cake) or bring in holly or mistletoe and all the other traditions of the older festival (including wassailing)

OP was being squeamish about the term Christmas, not about any actual spirituality (it's a party being discussed, not an act of worship) and so I suggested changing the term, to one that is not associated in any way with the established state religion, and whose traditions never completely left the festival. Giving the older tradition some recognition.

It's a huge secular binge for most people, whichever religion's name they use for it.

Jesus was a persecuted non-white refugee from a poor family. There you go, now you have some virtue points for celebrating Christmas.

Well exactly. You’d look forward to the annual Diwali party and recognise that you live in India.

All this stuff about not celebrating Christmas or banning alcohol (or pigs in blankets) is completely unhelpful.

@DumboHimalayan

What is your motivation for that comment? You can have your view on a persons faith but I really don't understand why every time I mention my faith in these forums people feel the need to be so rude and condescending with these not picking details. Do you do this to people of other faiths too or is it just Christian's who deserve to constantly be spoken to like this?

The op was about the use of the word Christmas for a non religious cultural tradition. I just gave my thoughts. I then get stick over Santa because I used that as an example. And now I'm getting stick over saying not every Christian does the saints 🤷‍♀️ I personally have some strong views on the saints and worship of them as do quite a few other Christians there is a lot of history on that. But I don't feel the need to insult those with differing beliefs

Christmas seems very far removed from a religious festival to me these days. I’m an atheist but happy to go along with the jamboree for the time off and parties, and society marks it in away it doesn’t other festivals, eg with TV schedules, shopping, food etc.

I despise this kind of ridiculousness.

Unless you're doing something extremely religious such as hosting it inside a church service then invite people and they are free to chose to go or not. Also recognise other religious festivals in an appropriate way if there are staff who celebrate them.

It wouldn't even be discussed would it (rightly so) ah we shouldn't do it in case some people don't celebrate it.

Speak for your own party!

We go to church, sing hymns and pray a lot….. just like all office parties surely? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

My motivation was to communicate that your particular flavour of Christianity does not define "the Christian tradition", and also to emphasise that "the Christian tradition" is massive and diverse — it has powerfully influenced many, many cultures, and taken influence and inspiration from many cultures too. It's broader and far more complex than simply your own personal set of beliefs, and yes, Santa Claus is part of it and your child's teachers were correct.

Nothing in what I said was intended to be rude, condescending, insulting, or to "give you stick" about your beliefs, but it's a little tricky to get the right tone when you're talking to someone who believes that the boundaries of their own personal faith mark the limits of what counts as the Christian tradition. You are not the arbiter of that. And neither am I. But you'd find few decent scholars who would define it so narrowly.

I think the people the OP is bending over backwards not to offend would just roll their eyes and tell OP to get a life! I agree it’s virtue signallers like the OP that get offended on behalf of people they think should be offended - when in fact they are not offended at all; and it’s people like the OP who are getting some weird kick out of fetishising what they think people from a minority background must be thinking or feeling. Very odd.

Christmas is a name grafted on the the various pagan midwinter festivals of Europe by the Christian church, which was savvy enough to know that it couldn't extirpate them completely. In the Scandinavian languages it's still called Jul, no mention of Christ.

In northern Europe particularly we need a midwinter party. It's cold or wet or both outside and daylight in short.

I'll have the party and call it Christmas in English, and its other traditional names in other languages. Just as I'll call the movable spring festival by its thoroughly pagan name of Easter in English.

A previous place I worked in had a small contingent of staff of other faiths, some of whom had religious dietary requirements. All of them came to the works Christmas party regardless.

hth