Our school has banned the word Christmas?

[Fayethefair]

I’ve heard from a friend on my DD’s school’s ptfa that our Cambridgeshire school has banned the word Christmas to make the school events feel more inclusive. So now it’s Festive Party, Festive Fayre etc. I’m happy to let mumsnet know the name of the school if they don’t feel this post is genuine so they can check this themselves but I won’t put names on here as this is my child’s school, I just don’t think this right and want to see what others think.

My daughter attended a Diwali lunch put on by the school recently and I genuinely thought this was lovely. I feel everything should be represented equally, I don’t understand or agree that the head should be picking and choosing what’s allowed and what isn’t. Surely this isn’t right?

and therein lies the issue with drip feeding.

I love fruit with chili on.
I had various tropical fruit in Mexico with a spice mix called Tajin (also available on Amazon) and its delicious.

Amazing on the rim of an ice cold watermelon margarita. Please consider that vital nugget of information your Christmas non-denominational winter gift.

Oh, and the OP is still unreasonable (I didn't vote).

I’m reserving judgement until we have the name of the school and concrete evidence. 👩‍⚖️ 🧑‍⚖️

No, your comprehension skills are somewhat lacking as I never said anywhere that the majority of the country celebrated the true Christian aspects of Christmas. I said it is the official religion of the UK, which has an entirely different meaning.

Christianity is however, still the dominant religion and the one that our holidays are largely based around. The traditions and customs centered around Christmas are largely symbolic of Christian beliefs around the birth of Jesus, even if some of them are of Pagan in origin they have been adapted to fit with the celebration of Christ's birth for more years than anyone alive today can remember. So anyone claiming now that they are celebrating pagan winter festivals rather than Christmas when they give gifts, put a star or angel on their Christmas tree, eat candy canes, wear Santa hats, write letters to Father Christmas etc. etc. are just being somewhat disingenuous.

Just send it to me!

Santa has nothing to do with the birth of Christ. Nor does a "Christmas fair". Nor do stockings or reindeer.

Most aspects of the celebration of Christmas are as detached from Christianity as they are from Paganism.

Before anyone asks, I would say the same about the way Eid-al-Fitr is celebrated by most modern Muslims. Or the way Diwali is celebrated by most Sikhs and Hindus. The majority of the celebration, for most people, is cultural and not religious. Just as Christmas is.

There is nothing wrong with any of this. Cultural celebrations are important too. But

Just in case anyone notices I’ve dropped off this thread, I’ve decided to save myself for the next one. It’s still early (ish) November, after all! 🤣

So anyone claiming now that they are celebrating pagan winter festivals rather than Christmas when they give gifts, put a star or angel on their Christmas tree, eat candy canes, wear Santa hats, write letters to Father Christmas etc. etc. are just being somewhat disingenuous.

What, even Pagans? BTW Angels = Christianity, the others aren't specifically Christian. Especially as around half of the stars I see for decorations seem to be 5 pointed i.e. pentagrams (you know, the type Pagans use).

Christmas trees
Wreaths
Mistletoe
Yule logs
Christmas dinner
Parties and drinking
Gift giving
Father Christmas
all pagan traditions.

Like this isn't of pagan origin 😂

Like I said!

Any 'Christian beliefs' around Christmas are largely irrelevant to most of the population, as a country we've moved back towards the original meaning of Christmas.

Not sure what Christian beliefs you could even layer over evergreens and a jolly old man bringing gifts, it's a bit like Christians trying to claim Easter eggs by saying they symbolise a tomb 😐

No we haven't!

And the changing the name of Christmas celebrations to 'winter festival' type labels has nothing to do with making atheists or non practicing Christians feel included, it's about making other religions feel they can partake freely without feeling constrained by the rigidity of their own religions.

Yes we have.
It's a mid winter festival.
People bring evergreens inside, decorate their homes with lights.
They drink, feast, see their family, party, give gifts.
It's a festival that can be celebrated fully by people of any religion or none.

If Christians also want to go to church and tell the nativity story then no one is stopping them.

All of those things have been claimed by Christianity and given symbolic meaning. The Evergreen wreath is said to symbolize eternal life, St Nicholas has long been associated with bringing gifts and even the name Santa Claus is derrived from his name. As Christianity evolved the pagan traditions have lost their original significance and become significant in Christian traditions. It's not possible for Christmas to return to it's pagan origins because nobody remembers the original roots, it's history now.

Christianity is not significant to most people in this country anymore, and getting less significant every year. Those things have lost any Christian meaning they might have had for a while.

Not many of the Muslims and Hindus or people of any other religion I know celebrate Christmas. They don't gift gifts at Christmas to their children, they don't have a tree and they don't eat turkey and stuffing on Christmas day either.

Well, according to official figures more people identify as Christian still than anything else!

Growing up in Holland, we had presents for St Nicholas on 5th Dec not for Christmas.

So what you're saying is people turned up, changed the way things were celebrated, changed the name and said "it's Christmas now, not winter solstice / Yule", took all the events and de-Paganified them?

And that's ok, but renaming Christmas fairs as winter fairs isn't?

No, not really, your simplistic analogy is pretty much the opposite of what's happening now. Don't think the Pagans changed their traditional festivals overnight in response to minority Christian groups feeling left out!

Ok, let's look at the facts.

You said: As Christianity evolved the pagan traditions have lost their original significance and become significant in Christian traditions.

You acknowledge that these are Pagan traditions, but that the evolution of Christianity led to the Pagan origin being lost and Christian traditions taking over.

I counter with: as society becomes increasingly secular, the Christian traditions have lost their original significance and become significant in secular traditions.

There are still plenty of pagans around happily celebrating the solstice and Yule. They survived the Christianisation of the festive season, and I'm sure Christians will survive the secularisation of it too.

Nope. They were changed because the ruling invaders (Romans) changed to Christianity as their state faith, and when you have a mandatory state faith then going against it can be a life limiting experience. Similar to the various changes to the way the Christian faith could be practiced in the 16th century; One year you have to say Mass in Latin & Bible can only be written in Latin, the next year it has to all be in English. One year you were expected to worship the saints, the next you couldn't. One month you had to believe in Transumstantiation, the next it was only a representation. If you didn't do it right, burning at the stake or hanging time for you.

Once the Romans had gone many people went back to the "old ways" - not really much of a change, as the Christians had just taken over the sacred places and traditions and renamed them/built over them, so they would just change the names back.

When the assorted missionaries came to Britain the kings realised that "converting" was a good political move for them. Didn't stop them having a mix of Pagan & Christian grave goods or symbols around.

Have a visit one day to Canterbury, Rochester, Ely, Durham, St Giles or Exeter Cathedrals; they a full of carvings of the Green Man - very much a Pagan symbol. Very popular spiritual figure in many ancient and Pagan beliefs, so the early Christians shoe horned him in somehow.

And please explain why all the symbols of new life and fertility are relevant to the DEATH of Christ. You can sort of see from a RE-birth aspect, but new birth, eggs etc? They just changed the name from Ostara/Oestre to Easter.

People nowadays however aren't saying you'll be punished if you don't change to our way of things, just try to stop pretending that as you stole near enough all your traditions then others can't claim them back.