School have banned the word "christmas"!!!

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

liana_y2kuk wrote: »

No letter, I am thinking of sending a letter in myself tomorrow to ask about it. I am just wondering how to word it.

Its a catholic primary school. So I REALLY don't understand.

Kat
x

Ah, they're getting all self righteous about using the proper religious terminology. You'll be forbidden from using the phrase Sunday School as well.

Presumably, the idea of insisting on the correct words means they feel the school has become a bit lacking in religiousity.


Best not say much for fear of being struck down by a head with an extreme case of piety.

jd87

Like other people have said, Advent and Christmas are two different time periods, and with the school being a Catholic one, they are probably making a special effort to teach the kids the difference. I imagine the scenario went like this:

Kid: Miss miss! Are we going to have christmas cards and decorations now that it's Christmas?

Teacher: It's not Christmas yet. At the moment it's Advent. We call this time of year Advent.

Some time later at home

Kid: Mummy mummy! Teacher said that we're not allowed to say Christmas, we have to call it Advent instead.

Mum: *Dials all the national tabloid newspapers about the horrendous scandal.*

vax2002

If we look even further back, Celtic tribes would celebrate the return of the Sun, The believed the Sun was the true God and giver of all life on earth, which is actually true, December the 21st is the shortest day and the earliest day that shows any noticeable difference in day light is December the 25th.
Tribes would hang up gifts of meat and other objects on trees around villages in offerings to the spirits they thought were in charge of the Sun in the run up to the rebirth of the sun god, a great feast would be called lasting 12 days and 12 nights to celebrate the return of the Sun and start of the new season, know as the festive season.
Some bright spark decided to merge the worship of this Sun God with the new God and tell us the festival was now the rebirth of the Sun God which became know as the Sun of God and merged it with the tale of some bloke from the middle east and on went the tale.

Carl31

Stuart_W wrote: »

I'm a primary school RE teacher.

If we want to get all technical about this.......

...we could just admit its all a load of made up rubbish and revert back to the original mid winter celebration that was celebrated before the romans landed here...which would save a whole bunch of arguments

but thats no fun

Becles

Christmas cards are banned at our school.

They said they find children leave them in their trays, in the cloakrooms etc., and they end up getting chucked away rather than taken home. They also said sometimes the less popular children get upset as they don't get as many cards.

They like the children to send in one card addressed to the whole class and the cards are displayed in the classroom, and the money you would have spent on cards to be donated to CAFOD.

The only downside is some have taken it a little too far and have to have the biggest most OTT card in the display.

sassyblue

I wouldn't be too happy about it, no way am l ever going to say 'Happy Holidays' and all that rubbish it's CHRISTMAS a Christian festival, this country is a Christian country.... and l don't have to be overly religious to celebrate it.

This country's already half way to hell with the human rights stuff being abused and 'elf n safety - next they'll be banning religion, oh!

I like all traditions - we're a multicultural society, it makes you learn and respect others religions and traditions - why do we have to ban everything, that's not the answer - live and let live is the answer!

dizziblonde

I jokingly mention to kids I've banned the C word (to which one smart-alec replied, "what, crisps?") until the 15th December and pretend to stick my fingers in my ears and go "lah lah lah lah I can't hear you" if they start talking about it (jokingly)... purely because if you start the tinselitis too soon and rush into it on the first day of December by mid-December they're all flagging with energy, absolutely manic with excitement, tired and getting on each other's nerves!

Christmas cards are a collossal nightmare - every school worked in has done them as a postbox deal with the year 6es doing the rounds to deliver them - but I always try to post them discreetly into kids' trays so that they can just pick them up with their hometime stuff and it doesn't become a massive thing of giving them out on the carpet at the end of the day in case it's the one day that someone doesn't get one (usually because they're just written "Johnny" on the card and some poor Y6 child is currently going round all the classes trying to work out which Johnny's the intended recipient!) - I'd quite like them limited to the last couple of weeks of term as well to be honest - since those first couple of days of card deliveries do tend to have kids left out until the avalanche of them appears.

Person_one

xbrenx wrote: »

They've been trying to bring in the phrase *holidays* instead of Christmas for ages now - it's so we don't upset people who don't celebrate Christmas.

Political correctness gone barmy.
We are a Christian country, let's not let them steal the biggest celebration of it. Even if most people don't really celebrate it for religious reasons anymore.

This old chestnut.

Who's they?

I see many many people complaining about the 'banning' of Christmas and nobody actually trying to ban Christmas.

In fact everywhere I go the last few days...lights, trees, santas, cards, everywhere you look!

saidan

yes you are over-reacting

our school - being eco-friendly - have asked for a single christmas card to be sent to the class, and a donation made to charity for the money one would have spent.

fine by me - cannot see the point of little ones sending cards to their friends anyway.

re the banning of the word - perhaps the teacher was just having a bad day and banned it for the day?

saidan

NickyBat

Personally, i'd take no notice, i'd like to see them actually enforce it, children will inevitably forget and say the word anyway.