I teach my children to say Happy Holidays first.
An opinion

by Kimber ~ 2003

November and December are busy days for most of us here in the United States. It is the official "Holiday Season" with lots of hustling and bustling, shopping, visiting, eating, celebrating, etc. But nowadays this means different things for different people and in our family, the circles we move in have brought us into contact with so many more than I ever thought possible. So teaching our children about the holidays and helping them understand what, how and why their friends and neighbors celebrate has been a challenge and a joy. Much to my surprise, one source of assistance for us in this has been Playhouse Disney. They acknowledge and superficially explore the concepts of Christmas, Chanuka and Kwanzaa. The other source, for us, is the Untarian Universalist Church, which spends time going over these and other holidays such as Yule/Solstice. So this, then, is part of my holiday hustle and bustle and also a tradition I hope to keep going, teaching my children not only tolerance but acceptance and the ability and desire to share in the celebration of their friends.

I struggle, just as any parent does, against Santa Clause and the anticipation of the pile of presents under the tree. During the Christmas service at the UU church Sunday morning, they brought the children in from the RE Groups to the "big church" so the minister could read a holiday story. I was overjoyed when she read a book called "Santa's Favorite Story" wherein Santa told all the forest animals his favorite story about the birth of Jesus and that Christmas isn't about Santa or gifts but about the birth of a great teacher and the message he brought of peace and love for all men. After church that day we talked about that story and about the story of the nativity and about Jesus and the gift he gave to everyone of love and hope to live together as one people. We have also spoken of the Miracle of Lights and the celebrations of Chanuka and the spirit of peace, family and community celebrated at Kwanzaa. I try to teach by example the spirit of Yule, to live in harmony with the cycles of the earth and our fellow beings. Part of the harmony is learning about each other; the earth, the seasons, and those beings around us, which brings us back to learning about the holidays.

When I was growing up, we just said Merry Christmas. We were in 1970's small town Illinois. The most exotic religion we ever had any actual contact with were Catholics. Occasionally we heard the word Chanuka and knew it was a holiday around the time of Christmas but it had nothing to do with us so we never learned what it was. I didn't even hear about Kwanzaa until I was in college. Now my son has a friend in his RE group whose family are so culturally diverse through intermarriage and adoption that they celebrate all three holidays. Some feel that saying Happy Holidays is pandering to some kind of PC pressure and that you should just say happy-whatever-holiday-you-celebrate and be done with it and no one should be offended anyway. Well, I really don't think it's about offence. It's about sharing someone else's joy. Acknowleging and rejoicing in their differences. And honestly, I love the ideas that are represented by all the holidays so even if I don't display a menorah or drink from an ancestor cup I still want to in some way recongnize their validity and celebrate their observance. And I want that same thing for my children.

So that is why I teach my children to say Happy Holidays first.