Christmas in the public sphere

By Sharn Dhah
The Collegian

IT’S BEGINNING TO feel a lot like Christmas. All the signs are here. There’s the obvious change in temperature. Friends are handing me candy canes.

A student can hardly walk across campus without seeing some sort of Christmas decoration on display.

In the normal course of my day, I get to look at the wreaths hanging above the entrances to the University Student Union, the garland that dresses up the bowling alley, the Christmas tree standing downstairs in the USU and the countless window dressings in department offices.

I have come to expect to see these things; we all have, even on a public school campus.

Maybe especially on a public school campus. Christmas decorations are pervasive and they are considered normal and acceptable.

Some of us don’t really notice it and most of us certainly don’t see a problem with it.

Due to rampant commercialism and consumerism, Christians and non-Christians alike have come to celebrate Christmas.

It seems as though non-Christians forget that it is a religious holiday, or that only occurs to them as an afterthought.

And as it stands, Christmas decorations continue to appear all around campuses and inside classrooms of supposedly secular schools.

It begins in elementary school. We did art projects in class that included making a Santa Claus out of construction paper.

Sometimes we had a gift exchange at the annual Christmas party before winter vacation.

It was something we looked forward to because it was a nice break from booklearning. I’m sure we were given a choice whether to participate or not, but what kid would choose not to?

My family isn’t Christian, but we did celebrate Christmas for a little while when I was a child.

My parents told me that it was because, back then, I only understood the gift-giving part of Christmas.

When I became old enough to understand that it is a religious holiday, we dropped all pretenses.

I used to rationalize that it was okay to celebrate Christmas with my friends and at school, but now I’m questioning even that.

I was involved with my school choir from fourth grade to seventh grade and every year, we learned songs that had religious overtones, like “Silent Night,” “Go Tell It On the Mountain,” or excerpts from Handel’s “Messiah.”

It seemed strange to me even then, but I went along with it.

Only once do I remember a girl refusing to sing a song because it conflicted with her religious beliefs.

The rest of the choir thought she was weird, which was wrong of us, but a typical judgment to make.

Most of the concerts we put on, even when it wasn’t Christmastime, were held at churches, where a cross would be hanging on the wall behind us.

It made me uncomfortable and it’s one of the things that troubled me most about being in the school choir.

There were certainly other concert venues available, like school cafeterias or auditoriums. I didn’t understand why they had to be held in a church.

I talked to one of my former choirmates recently, about how she felt participating in choir at a Clovis school.

She commented, “Being an atheist, I learned rather quickly to pretend to be ‘normal’ in that right winged town of brainwashed people. Internally it did bother me, but externally I pretended to be unaffected.”

Looking back now, it’s easy to see how someone could be led to believe we were being indoctrinated.

I work part-time at a nondenominational drugstore and we sell many Christmas items. On a recent weekend, I was asked to set up a mini Christmas tree to put up on display.

I did what I was asked, but I drew the line when the assistant manager wanted to put a light-up Nativity scene next to my register.

Not just because it was gaudy and in poor taste, but because it was so blatantly religious.

I refused to let it be put near me. I understand that the rules of separation of church and state do not apply in this retail establishment, but this incident served to infuriate me.

There is no escaping these religious declarations.

When I see Christmas decorations, an undercurrent of resentment ripples through me. I acknowledge that many decorations are pretty, and the twinkling lights can be hypnotizing.

I’m not advocating that people should take down the decorations in their offices because they can definitely brighten up a workspace.

But I think it’s important that people remember that Christmas is first and foremost a religious holiday.

We should be aware of the religious symbolism behind Christmas decorations.

If school choirs want to sing holiday themed songs, I recommend neutral songs, like “Jingle Bells” or “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” a personal favorite, which even sends a good message about accepting creatures that are different from ourselves.

There isn’t any way to stop people from proudly putting up decorations and I wouldn’t want them to, but I feel like Christmas has been pushed on myself and others who normally wouldn’t celebrate it.

We have complacently gone along with it because it was easy and fun, I admit, but it’s time to stop pretending.

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