In the spirit of inclusivity, Aberdeen school describes cards made at Christmas as Winter cards

[cakeorwine]

Children at this school have been making cards in the run up to Christmas for ages.

Many children still make Christmas cards during this activity and they are free to call them Christmas cards

However, the school announced they would be adopting the phrase "winter cards" to show "value and respect" to different cultures.
The email sent to families said: “To reflect this inclusivity in our communications, we refer to seasonal cards as “winter cards” rather than “Christmas cards”.
“This terminology helps ensure that our language is welcoming and inclusive of all members of our school community.
It added that families were still free to use the phrase Christmas cards if they preferred.

You can imagine the online reaction. The Deputy Headteacher received a threatening phone call

"Unfortunately, following the communications, our deputy head teacher received an abusive and threatening telephone call.

"This was followed by disappointing comments on social media suggesting that Christmas was somehow being removed from our school.
"I want to reassure you that is simply not the case"

We had Winterval in Birmingham. Haven't people learnt? I can imagine it's been done with the best intentions but I bet they didn't consult with the parents before doing this. It has come at the worst possible time for relations with other communities and it's spreading like wildfire online.

I'm an atheist I have no problem with schools making Christmas cards. Just don't try and force a religion on my son.

I am sure most people, regardless of faith or lack of faith, have no problem with Christmas Cards.

Winter cards is a stupid idea

The school has absolutely not decided that they cannot mention the word Christmas. Can you explain why you're making stuff up and then getting angry about it?

Wokeism strikes again These people need to get a life.

Political correctness gone mad?

I see so many people referring to Christmas and Easter as Christian festivals which always makes me giggle!

They predate Christianity and are actually based on various Pagan festivals… the clue is in the traditions…

Jesus wasn’t visited by an Easter bunny who bought him back to life by feeding him a chocolate egg!

Mary didn’t give birth under a Christmas tree whist kissing Santa under the mistletoe whist eating a chocolate Yule log!

The faux outrage about cards on this thread is actually bonkers!

In fact it’s inspired me to get the craft kit out and make some fabulous Winter Cards complete with tea lights to give to neighbours, friends and family when the clocks go back to spread some cheer and brighten their day!

I will still do Christmas and New Year cards… etc… but seriously if you are upset by winter cards you are a first world problem person!

What should we call Diwali or Ramadam then? Fuck this shit, i am frankly sick of the stupidity. Noone is excluded by any of it.

Christmas is a christian period of festivity. Let's all makes sure we shout that loud and clear.

I don't think I'll be shouting about Christianity at Christmas

They are Christmas cards - relax everyone - you're ok - call them what they are - CHRISTMAS CARDS!

Religion. Shit stirring bloody fairy tales.

Its the reason for so much pain and cruelty.

Christmas is a commercial holiday. Why do we fool ourselves pretending thst it is anything else? I bloody love it, but I dont believe in the religious fairy tales that it's based on.

Perhaps if we took the approach that Christmas and Easter were akin to Halloween, Mothers Day, Father's Day and removed the God bothering there would be less need to make a big deal about it.

Happy Holidays, Happy Christmas, Happy pretty lights & booze day. Who actually cares????

No need to make a statement about the naming convention of Chrimbo cards - just to be PC. Yawn, Meh....

I must say that is impressive. I did see portions of the ceremony and the history behind it is interesting. It sounds as if you are allowing your son the privilege of deciding for himself where he will be comfortable and I applaud you for that. I did not realize that atheists had a holiday dedicated to them. You response to my post was civil and informative and I stand corrected if mine did not seem so. I wish you and your family happiness.

You can shout all you like. You're not going to stop schools making winter cards with children. And you're not going to bully people into celebrating things because you say so. Religion isn't compulsory in the UK.

I left a lot of the ceremony out
It is quite amazing how much it's based in Christianity and God. I don't know if it will last in that form.

My son's now 21. Religion is not part of his life. He's as Uni so no doubt they have conversations about the meaning of life

I hope I've bought him up to respect other religions. He's well travelled and has been to Muslim countries such as Indonesia, Buddhist countries so he's seen a lot of different religions.

I did the same when I was young. I've been to India and Nepal where religious faith is everywhere. It was amazing to see how alive and how public it is especially the funerals.

I hope we do lose the link between the State and the Church of England. It would be good for the Church.

I went to a State boarding school.Not religious, Howeve we had a Bible reading and prayers before lights out. We had to attend a service in the Library every Sunday and go to the Cathedral every 3 weeks.We said Grace before meals.

We had a hymn at Assembly. Each 6th Former had to do a Bible reading in front of the whole school followed by The Lord's Prayer.

If you want to turn people off religion, that was a guaranteed way to do it. And this was not a religious school.

I still wonder if they do the same thing nowadays. I could email them and ask!!

Re read what the OP posted, the school have very clearly stated that people can still use the word "Christmas" as freely as they want to! The problem starts when people like you try to stir the far right pot by telling a complete lie that the school said the word Christmas must not be mentioned! You fabricate things like this online and you can end up being responsible for far right thugs gathering at the school!

My partner and I have gone out for Xmas eve curries many times over the years and believe you me, the curry houses often Christmas decorations up, crackers, the staff have Xmas jumpers and hats on! Don't fall for or create any propaganda.

The school have definitely not dropped Christmas

An Aberdeen city council spokesman said: “The school community enjoys celebrating a number of festivals and Christmas continues to play a large part in Kaimhill School at this time of year.
“Activities planned this year include Christmas parties, festive sing-alongs, Christmas lunch, Christmas boutique, Christmas fair, Christmas decorations throughout the school, Christmas crafts, Christmas-themed films and activities

I just can't rationalise why they are doing all this but then decided they would be using the term winter cards but children can still make Christmas cards

I used to be a teacher. We did sorting activities based on criteria,I gave them some pictures of animals and they had to decide how to sort them based on their own specific criteria.

Some did legs, tails, eyes. Jessica and Hannah did cute and not cute, !!

I did ask them how they would define cute so someone else could categorise an animal with their definition

In the same way, how would someone sort out Christmas versus Winter cards. My class did snowmen, snowflakes, reindeer, Christmas trees, angels, Santa,presents
Some did Jesus, The Three Wise Men, The Nativity scenes but that was rare

What differentiates a Christmas Card from a Winter Card?

All the devout Christians on this thread shocked by this were surely even more shocked to learnt that someone purporting to defend Christianity was making threats to the school……….

I really feel for those posters, hearing of behaviour so at odds with the principles of Christianity,

I’m also curious OP, what makes you see this as ammunition for the far right? As far as I’m concerned nothing could turn me into a racist arsehole, particularly not a kerfuffle over cards, have you found reasonable thoughtful people of normal intelligence easily swayed to a racist worldview by guff? Given your concern about the far right, did you worry before posting that your post could be seen as a standard racist dog whistle?

It's a shame nowadays because some people are so obsessed and over the top about protecting their own culture that they never venture out in the world and experience other cultures and traditions.

My partner and tears back went to India and found we were there during the Holi festival day and ended up covered in powder paint of all colours, we went in the the convenience shop near our hotel to find the shopkeeper covered in powder paint too! In recent years we were in Vietnam during Chinese new year which is "Tet" in Vietnam and we saw the many days of brightly coloured flowers, kumquat trees and decorations being set up and it was a big celebration on the night itself. What was really interesting was being woken up by drums early the next morning and seeing a little group of dancers and musicians in amazing outfits going house to house, it turns out that they believe the first person to cross a threshold on new year's day of Tet is doomed for bad luck so for a little fee, the dancers cross your threshold for you avd do a little lucky dance 😁. We went to Sri Lanka this year and the Buddhist temples were beautiful and even met a young monk who showed us around one.

It's ammunition for the Far Right. I follow a lot of Far Right people on Social media and it blew up on there straightaway. Lots of talk about it being a Christian country, how dare they, blaming Muslims for this etc

A racist dog whistle? If it gets ignored, the issues still carry on. It does bring people out on MN and it allows people to be challenged or ideally to justify their beliefs.

I can show you how I can challenge their beliefs on this thread. I've been busy for the past few days

Facts don't change minds. I have been reading a lot about how people's minds change. Arguing or name calling does not change minds.

Clarifying their beliefs, asking them to explain them and then asking them some questions helps

I was able to gently change someone's minds on BBC pay when he posted on X about ethnic minority pay. In fact, I am going to start a thread to show you how it's done

So to clarify, do you believe Christmas at this school is under threat because the school have decided the default term is Winter Cards?

Am I correct that is your belief?

So to clarify, do you believe Christmas at this school is under threat because the school have decided the default term is Winter Cards?

Am I correct that is your belief?

So to clarify, do you believe Christmas at this school is under threat because the school have decided the default term is Winter Cards?

Am I correct that is your belief?

So to clarify, do you believe Christmas at this school is under threat because the school have decided the default term is Winter Cards?

Am I correct that is your belief?

So to clarify, do you believe Christmas at this school is under threat because the school have decided the default term is Winter Cards?

Am I correct that is your belief?

So to clarify, do you believe Christmas at this school is under threat because the school have decided the default term is Winter Cards?

Am I correct that is your belief?

So to clarify, do you believe Christmas at this school is under threat because the school have decided the default term is Winter Cards?

Am I correct that is your belief?

If you have a look at a post I responded to above it's one example of someone exaggerating it to be a ban on the word Christmas when it isn't and there's a post early on in this thread of someone telling Muslims to leave the country of they don't like it! I'm puzzled as to how you've never seen the far right get silly over nothing and fall for every bit of propaganda? I mean they surrounded a hotel recently because brown people were seen - it was the under 21 Pakistani cricket team on tour! You must be the only person in the country that doesn't know what the far right do! They found a missing 11 year old girl dead, the coroner and the police have stated she wasn't killed and nobody was involved but the far fighters in the comments couldn't accept it! It's all a cover up! It's all a lie! They don't want us to know it was an immigrant! They think coroners and the parents would jointly agree with the police to pretend she wasn't murdered so as not to upset the morons! And you think these people are rational? Where in god's name have you been for the last ten years not to see this behaviour?

Yes children could be confused about this festive season and regarding Santa which is magical for young children. However the Scottish place more emphasis on Hogmanay. Does that also fall within the Winter card category?

Pretty easy, really.

Overall category is Winter Cards.

Jessica makes a Christmas Card.
Jamie makes a Yule Card.
Ben makes a Hannukah Card.
Elsie makes a Season's Greetings Card.
Anaya makes a Diwali Card.
Jun makes a New Year Card.
Sama makes a card of a snowy scene with an owl in a tree.
Felicity makes a Lunar New Year Card (and thinks it's a bit early to be doing cards but it's fun, even if the only goat picture she could cut out to stick on it was a Julbock she got from Oskar when he was sorting through the images his big brother had printed out for him the night before).
Rebekah makes a card with a rabbit on because she likes rabbits. The fact that she's made it look positively Spring-like with yellow flowers and Bumblebees is studiously ignored. Dad grumbles a bit to Mum when it comes home and is told to shut up, she's given the bunny a little red hat so that's close enough.

It's not hard to pan out to the overriding category of Winter Cards instead of homing in on the differences between them. They're all cards. They're made in Winter. The class is therefore making Winter Cards.