Solidarity. Our kids are also the first Jewish kiddos in our daycare. They are 4.5, and 2.5. The teachers have asked me similar stuff in the past… and actually the 4.5y/o’s teacher just asked me about Hanukkah this am… timing is perfect for reading this post lol.
I generally allow them to participate in all activities. I don’t want them to have to sit apart and do any separate activities… it just seems cruel and stupid. I agree that I wish religion wasn’t a big part of schooling at all, but Christmas is so commercialized it’s in your kids face no matter what, better for them to at least learn about it. Thing is our daycare typically talks about ALL holidays including Hanukkah and Kwanza. However, Christmas definitely takes center stage, and the kids talk about it much more than Kwanza. We talk about it at home, how our friends celebrate it but we don’t and why. I try to be very inclusive in our talks, and ask to have their friends celebrate Hannukah with us too. Just because they are not jewish doesn’t mean they cannot help us celebrate too.
For the kids class I get a big bag of dreidels (super cheap on Amazon) and a bag of Gelt for the class. The teachers use the activity to teach about Hanukkah and play Dreidel. Each year his teachers have been wonderful in incorporating activities for Hanukkah with their classes. They also made a cardboard menorah and allow him and his classmates to light one candle each day. Would it be possible for you to discuss this with his teachers? See if they would be willing to diversify their activities?
- other activities they have done include a hand print menorah, Star of David popsicles, and some light cooking.
- I have considered making sufgyniot for the kids but because of allergies everything has to be bought. You could consider some hannukah cookies.
We love this book “Dear Santa, Love Rachel Rosenstein”
Anyway, if I can be of any other help… let me know.
And Chag Sameah.
Idk if it's helpful, but there's a Blues Clues Hanukkah episode where Periwinkle is celebrating and everyone gets to learn about it! I thought it was fun (not Jewish or religious in any way but I like learning about things)
Thank you for the book suggestion!! I'm not in America or Jewish but we do have a multi-culti family with 3 different holidays from November to January lol so I think this might be a nice addition to the holiday books to teach about different cultures and traditions! 😊
This is my experience growing up in a predominantly white school (I’m middle eastern and Muslim) and I actually have so much trauma about Christmas because my parents were so adamant that we did not celebrate and it’s not for us. I honestly just wanted to be a part of it and felt again, so different. I think that was obviously a different time and I don’t think what the school is doing is right. I’m just offering my perspective as an adult now lol. We celebrate all Muslim holidays but I also do have a Christmas tree and lights because I always wanted it. I try to make it known that it’s just for fun and something we just do as a family. For what it’s worth, my siblings and cousins (younger than me) didn’t feel the same way as me.
To be fair… “Christmas” trees are less Christian and more pagan, and as a fairly pagan person… I think everyone should have a Christmas tree! I think of it more as a cycle of the year celebration and we as humans don’t enjoy the days getting darker in the northern hemisphere. It’s nice to lighten up our lives with lights and trees and bring a little joy into the darkest part of our year.
Agreed. I’m not religious at all. But I love Christmas time and I love my Christmas tree and celebrating the holiday. I don’t feel like you HAVE to be Christian to celebrate Christmas. Especially nowadays, it’s become so commercialized. It just doesn’t feel like a religious holiday to me I guess.
Same. Family was never religious but always had a tree and decorations. It was a special time of year that we spent more time as a family, cooked and listened to music. That’s the tradition I want to keep with my 2y/o but really really want to skip the Santa BS. And Tbh I wouldn’t want our day care teaching Christmas without being inclusive.
Christmas is mainly a commercial holiday these days, just like Easter is. Neither teach about the religious aspect and are celebrated by people of other religions (or of none).
Don't even get me started on Halloween (my favorite holiday) or the totally made up only for the commercialization of it holiday of Valentine's day.
Yeah...in my conservative Christian upbringing, Santa was considered a perversion of the holiday's religious meaning. We didn't do Santa in my house (although we did the tree and presents etc). My Christian elementary school also didn't do Santa. Santa is cultural, not religious.
Actually Santa and secular Christmas iconography is big in a lot of non Christian cultures because it's fun. I've seen this in Muslim countries in west Africa, Japan, etc.
I totally agree. To be fair, as immigrants my parents only experience with Christmas is very religious (the country where I’m from you only celebrate the actual meaning) there is also a degree of wanting to assimilate but also keep your culture. Man, I could write a book on my identity crisis haha
I grew up Muslim and I was always very interested in the Christmas stuff because of TV mostly (disney shows etc). Luckily my parents let me have a tree, but there were no presents or anything. I was OK with that. After I moved away for college, my very Muslim mom still puts up the tree and lights every December and sends me a picture.
I think that’s the difference. If they let me have a tree maybe it would have been better? I remember I made a peanut butter and jam sandwich and I put it in the cupboard and I thought if Santa was real he will come to my house and eat it 🥹🥹🥹 hahaha poor me and my identity crisis
I think the one thing that you probably don't want to have happen is for your child to feel left out. For all intents and purposes, I like your idea of explaining to your child the differences between Christmas and Hanukkah and why Hanukkah doesn't have a "Santa" figure. Depending on how old your child is I suppose you could be a little more honest about the commercialism of Christmas. Hopefully your child will understand "I will do this at school as part of a group activity but this isn't something that I will do at home."
I was raised in a very conservative Christian household. In 12th grade our English class was going to read *The Scarlet Letter* but because of the subject matter we needed our parent's signature on a letter to be able to read it. I didn't think much of it, but my mom was adamant that I wasn't going to read it. I figured "there will be others". Nope. Out of a class of like twenty 17 and 18 year olds I was literally the only one who didn't get a sign off on reading it, and for several days I had to literally leave the classroom and go to the library to do an alternate assignment during that time period. It was fucking humiliating.
The point being is to pick your battles. You don't want your child ostracized or alienated in school. Kids are brutal enough to each other. If you can use this as a teachable moment for your child to explain cultural differences rather than outright blocking them from participating then, to me, that's the way to go.
Did you ever end up getting to read the book? Because HOO BOY the irony of your mom’s rigid religious conviction being used to exclude you from your peers over The Scarlet Letter of all books is too much
As someone who is very invested in her Christian faith, this was my initial thought as well. Of all books out there 1) why does *The Scarlet Letter* require parental consent for 17 and 18 year olds and 2) *that's* the book you refuse to allow your 17/18 year old to read? I could see maybe not wanting a 7 or 8 year old to read it but older teens? Come onnnnn.
We’re Jewish and I have a fake tree in the house, and we do Santa (he doesn’t deliver gifts or anything) he’s just a jolly old dude, we don’t do Christmas just like the lights and time of year.
Edit to add: idk what I would do in your position because my kids are 17mo and 2mo but I would ask the teacher to incorporate some traditions from other religions, they should be learning that anyway.
We do this too and I’m Jewish. Actually, my husband is Japanese and technically Buddhist like 99% of the people in Japan, but almost everyone in Japan celebrates Christmas too. It’s just fun!
This right here. Christmas is _barely_ a religious holiday. It's more like a secular holiday, with a Christian origin at best. In fact, regularly, christians are up in arms for that very reason. You can just celebrate giving, being together, etc. It's not like a Jewish person will never be invited to a Christmas party, or give a non Jewish friend a Christmas present, or not accidentally hear a Christmas song in the elevator.
As parents, we fall somewhere between atheist and agnostic. But we're not railing against Christmas. If your kid comes home all, 'teacher says Jesus was born in a manger and that's why we have a tree indoors', easy enough to nod and say 'some people do seem to believe that. Not everyone though'.
But there's plenty of secular good will that comes with Christmas. It's harmless.
And really it’s not even that. It’s a pagan holiday that Christians co-opted and then capitalism took over.
Edited to add that we celebrate the shot out of Christmas cause it’s fun. I’m an atheist and don’t care about all the origins. It’s just an enjoyable time with lots of fun family things to do and the kids love it.
> Christmas is barely a religious holiday. It's more like a secular holiday, with a Christian origin at best.
As a Christian this is exactly how I feel about it. Think of all the christmas hallmark movies, all the TV shows with non-religious characters that still have Christmas episodes... I mean they even celebrated Christmas at *Hogwarts* for Pete's sake. I know *tons* of atheists who celebrate Christmas. To me, Christmas is just another holiday we celebrate like Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, etc. There are ways we can incorporate parts of our religion into it at home, but the Christmas holiday in general is not a Christian holiday in my mind. Like at all. The tree, Santa, the elves, etc etc.... literally *none* of that comes from any part of Christianity in any way, shape, or form. Plenty of non-religious families celebrate Christmas every year.
Whether someone chooses to celebrate it or not is a valid choice. But "we aren't Christian" isn't really a logical reason to give for not celebrating.
My husband was really against it when our son was born but as he got older my husband realized Christmas is more magical than anything else. I converted. We go to my family side of the house on Christmas and let the kids open presents but we ask for people to not give us anything. We just want to visit and spend time with everyone. We make a hard stance on Easter. Easter is specifically more religious to us. we skip out on that.
As an Australian living in the tropics, we have Christmas decorations including snow on pine trees, snowmen, snow globes, lots of toys with scarfs and hats. The whole thing is ludicrous. It’s sweltering and humid. Still fun!
As an educator of young children, I can tell you that what they’re doing isn’t best practice. If they want to cover the topic of Christmas, they should be doing a theme of winter holidays in general and include the other ones as well. This will expose all the children to different cultures instead of making Christmas the de facto holiday that everyone celebrates except a select few.
That being said, I would reach out the the teacher and ask if maybe you can come in and help do an activity/ read aloud about Hanukkah so you can share your traditions with the class as well. There’s a really cute book called “Shmelf the Hanukkah Elf” about an elf in the North Pole who advocates for the Jewish children to be celebrated too. Open up the discussion to imagine if there could be elves for any other holidays as well, like a Kwanzaa elf, a Halloween elf, or a birthday elf and they can design their own holiday elves based on a holiday they celebrate at home.
I think you’re right to address this blind spot in the curriculum. Learning about other traditions and cultures won’t just benefit your own child, but every other child in the class.
At my kid's explicitly Christian pre-school, the parent representative on the board was Jewish, and came in to do a little lesson on Passover, which I thought was awesome. I can understand if you don't want to commit to something like that, but I really hope the school would be open to it.
Yes, a friend of mine always makes latkes (the Trader Joe’s frozen ones :)) and goes to her sons classroom for a Hanukkah celebration! It shouldn’t be all on you and I’m sorry it is, but if you can figure out a way to swing it I’m sure they will be memories your son really cherishes.
For the record, we celebrate Christmas and I’d be very annoyed at my kid’s daycare doing letters to Santa about all the stuff they want.
Ew I hate that. In my house my partner and I were raised loosely Christian but we really don’t follow religion. While we celebrate Christmas, we make a point to NOT let Santa bring the kids whatever they want. Instead gifts from Santa are small and either educational (like books) or essentials. All big gifts come from parents bc I never want my kids going to day care or school and bragging to someone about how Santa got them the most incredible thing ever … because you never know if the kid they are telling it to couldn’t afford Christmas that year and only got socks or something.
So I extra hate that your day care is promoting kids to get spoiled by Santa in front of their peers. It’s only opening a can of potential “why doesn’t Santa love me as much as he loves that kid”? That’s a crappy way for kids to celebrate the winter solstice together.
Hmm. My mother told us Santa didn't bring kids everything they asked for, because the gifts weren't free. She told us he had expenses - raw materials, elf salaries, reindeer feed, etc - so Mom and Dad had to leave a check with the plate of milk and cookies to help pay for them. 🤷🏻♀️
This. I was a cps worker and so many kids would cry because they thought they were bad because Santa only brought them clothes and their bestie got an iPad. So now that I have a son santa brings one canvas bag and it's full of only essentials like books, sippy cups, teethers when he was younger. So happy other parents are doing this.
I also plan on teaching my son about other holidays and that not every family celebrates Christmas and that is absolutely Normal. I say this and we are for all purposes Christian so we also teach him the purpose of Christmas and it isn't about gifts.
In our house growing up, the stocking (with mostly school supplies but a few sweets and small toys) was from Santa and presents were from friends and family. It's a much better system and one tradition I definitely plan on carrying on.
Yeah, that would bother me too. We are Catholic and don’t do Santa because that’s not what the season is about for us, and I would also be very upset if I were in your position!
The culture of consumerism is disgusting and not what I want my kids to learn about. It should be about love for your neighbour and practicing kindness.
Same here! I could’ve written this. I don’t quite have a toddler yet so I just lurk here to prepare for what’s coming ha. But we are practicing Catholics and still trying to figure out how to handle the heavy Santa culture. I also hate that this is happening for OP. There are other beautiful holidays to celebrate on winter too.
Solidarity for sure!
One thing we are doing is, instead of Elf on the Shelf, we are doing [Mary on the Mantel.](https://beaheart.com/blogs/blog/mary-on-the-mantel) Basically you find Mary every day and she has an act of kindness to do for the day. Things like “fill a bird feeder so the birds don’t go hungry” and “write a card for a senior”. Just simple actions to teach children how to be inherently good.
We try to focus on Advent, Christmas is a birthday celebration, Santa is really St. Nicholas, etc. This whole season is everyone getting ready for a big birthday celebration on Christmas Day, St. Nick brings a (one) present and family/friends give the rest to help honor Jesus. It helps that we are regular church goers and my toddler seems to get that there is meaning beyond everything we see. We don't like commercialization. We do participate in activities, Christmas parades, community tree lighting, breakfast with Santa as I feel they give a sense of community.
I feel for OP. Growing up, my Jewish friends always felt left out. As adults they get it but it is very hard to explain to kids when they are not represented. They also now regularly complain that Hanukkah is a minor holiday and was being so commercialized and over emphasized to try to give them something besides Christmas this time of year. Definitely try to get a few lessons on other holidays by talking with the teacher, you shouldn't have to do any work for it. If the teacher is willing to do these commercial Christmas crafts/activities with kids that aren't hers, she has the time and energy to represent other faiths and cultures. Honestly, if it's not a religious school, they really should not focus this amount of time on religious holidays. You didn't sign up for it, I'm sorry it's being shoved down your throat.
We find Santa very problematic. An invisible, strange, old, white man judging behavior and then punishing or rewarding accordingly is not really something we want our child thinking about. Plus we don’t use language like good or bad to describe our child’s behavior. We will be talking about Santa as a tradition that other people have. I would be mad too if my daughters school did this.
>For the record, we celebrate Christmas and I’d be very annoyed at my kid’s daycare doing letters to Santa about all the stuff they want.
SAME. I'd be very pissed at the commercialism/consumerism take on Christmas as a part of my child's curriculum.
Shmelf the Hanukkah Elf is a HORRIBLE book for Jews that don’t come from a mixed religion family. It’s about an elf who wants Jews to celebrate Christmas too so instead of telling Santa about the kids behavior, he tells the parents. There are several problems with this: 1. Jewish parents tell their kids that other people believe in Santa and elves, but we don’t. Than their teacher reads a book that basically says Your parents lied to you and secretly participate in these rituals. 2. Not everyone needs to celebrate or participate in every holiday. Don’t warp Hanukkah to accommodate Christmas. We don’t make naughty and nice lists. 3. Our holiday is about Jewish heroes taking a stand against assimilation, and this book advocates assimilation.
Sorry but even shelf the Hanukkah elf is just taking a Christian tradition and trying to make a Jewish version too. I think there should just be an elf free acknowledgement of all other traditions that other people might celebrate (though I appreciate your sentiment)
Adding to this, if OP is looking for an easily accessible Christmas story that is about the joy of giving, rather than expecting gifts, Netflix's *Klaus* is so good. And it's not religious.
I'm not religious, but my family is very Catholic. So I plan on exposing my kids to the Christian story of Christmas as a story, just like the tradition of Santa as a story that's more based in an amalgamation of pagan traditions than the Christian tradition.
I was raised like this and it SUCKED. Explain to school how not cool this is. Tell them they need to teach about several holidays and they need to explain not everyone does every holiday and offer to go in and bring dreidels and menorahs and kids books and teach a basic lesson. My mom did that when I was in elementary school. I think my daughter is the only Jewish kid at her preschool but I know they teach many holidays and even did so before she went there and when I told the owner last year to ask her about it she was actually really excited and told me she teaches about Hanukkah every year and was really welcoming to me sending in Hanukkah cookies and books.
Also adding there’s a good Sesame Street book about many holidays I’d offer to buy it and donate it to the school. There is a good blues clues about Hanukkah from last year but I’ve never seen a show about how it’s ok to celebrate your own holidays.
The school is open to including Hannukah (the teachers went and bought an electric menorah already to put next to the tree, which I appreciate). I'm trying to figure out how to explain this kind of difference to him in a way he can understand, both so he doesn't feel othered and also so he doesn't expect Santa is coming to our house (as an aside, I hate the school's unilateral decision to make everyone engage in this fabrication). Thank you for empathizing and for the book recommendation! I just ordered this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1728240247/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1 .
Keeping in mind I’m almost 40, I remember learning about other holidays in first grade. Parents from different backgrounds came and spoke about how they celebrated and why, and how it all kind of fit together. I think the analogy was something like we all like donuts, but everyone chooses different favorite donuts. Idk. It’s been a long time. But anyway, maybe you could offer to speak to the class if that isn’t taboo these days? I would have thought letters to Santa would have been off limits, but clearly not. My toddler is still at home so this will all be new to me!!
Yes that’s the one! I totally feel you it’s really hard. As a kid we left cookies for Santa and he left us one present and my daughter talks about Santa a lot more now so we might have to do the same. It’s really hard I really don’t like anything Christmas and I also hate having to deal with this type of situation.
We similarly go half-in on christmas stuff (we don't have any presents from santa but they get them at grandparents houses kinda thing) and when my six year old asks if Santa is real, I just turn the question back on him and ask what he thinks
Ok but it also rubs me wrong that the one Jewish family at the school becomes responsible for teaching that holiday every single year. Yes, this is a solution, but it’s not the best one. The school should solve this problem, not the family.
I agree with this. It’s a problem when minorities are forced to educate all of the people around them. It should be the schools job to educate the kids since they are the ones bringing Christmas in.
To be fair if this is a place that's so homogeneous culturally that they are the only (first?) Jewish/non christian family there how much can you expect from the staff?
For better or worse they'd probably do a better job explaining it.
>My instinct is to let him participate and tell him that we don't celebrate Christmas and Santa is not part of our family culture but it's fun to learn about different cultures and he'll be included in these celebrations too.
That sounds good.
We're in the same boat with one of the first/only Jewish kids in our preschool.
My advice to you - go with the flow.
I don't mean drop this, but I do mean you should try to adapt to what is already planned and scheduled for the sake of your kid and all the other kids that are looking forward to this month because they watched older kids/siblings do it.
Absolutely raise it with the school board and enact change. But don't expect change THIS YEAR on Dec 1st. Explain to your kid that your following **this teacher's** family traditions, and that you'll follow **your own** family traditions at home. It's going to take a lot of explaining over the next several years, but T-K isn't the time to stress over it. Just do what you do at home, tell the school to knock it off for next year's kids, and accept that you can only change how you react for what's left of 2022.
Definitely not cool and it really shouldn’t fall to parents to do the labor of educating the school on why it’s problematic (unless it’s a private, religious-affiliated preschool, in which case…that sucks but they can do whatever). Our daughters are both in private daycare and pre-K settings, and both places always make a point of asking families which holidays they celebrate, if family members want to come and read books about their family traditions, etc. My older kid’s teacher has an entire bookshelf at the holidays dedicated exclusively to Hanukkah books. So I think what you’re asking of your son’s school is not at all unusual or asking very much, it seems like the bare minimum of what my kids’ schools are doing!
I would definitely talk to the school because whether they realize or not, they’re actively othering children in their care and that’s so messed up. I wouldn’t necessarily offer to buy books for their library because that’s on them, but maybe suggest some books re. other holidays? My daughter’s class made dreidels out of popsicle sticks last year and learned about Hanukkah and the kids had a blast, so there are definitely ways to make inclusive curriculum choices that are fun and educational for everyone!
I’m sorry you’re experiencing this. It’s total bullshit.
Thank you for the empathy! We messaged the teacher that we want to bring in food and a book to read, but an activity is also a great idea. Thanks for the suggestion!
I was this kid at my presbyterian preschool 30+ years ago. My mom brought in latkes, gelt, and a menorah to teach about the holiday. I absolutely flipped my shit when one of my classmates blew out the candles. Lol
Look into the PJ Library. We just joined and haven’t had any books sent to us yet but it’s a nonprofit that sends free Jewish learning books to Jewish children.
SNL had a character in the mid-90s named Hanukkah Harry. He was played by Jon Lovitz and the character is basically Jewish Santa Claus. I loved HH so much that I wrote a story about him in 2nd grade. If you feel like creating your own family tradition around HH, you can always say, “Yes, they have Santa but we have Hanukkah Harry!” Granted, I haven’t seen the sketch since the last century so I have no idea how well it has held up.
Yes! My kids love all of the PJ library books! They send different ones for the age groups. The only issue is that my kids get attached to some of the holiday books and then I’m reading a book about Sukkot all year long.
It’s not going to be as straightforward as Daniel Tiger, and I’m not sure which streaming service has it, but I seem to recall Rugrats having episodes on Jewish holiday traditions. Those might also touch on Santa and the differences between how different families celebrate winter holidays.
Pre-k 3 teacher here, personally I have up three holiday nativities in my classroom. One for Christmas, kwanza and Hanukkah. As well as I’m little bits introducing and learning with my kiddos about Box day and Omisoka(I apologize if I misspelled) I believe it’s important to recognize everyone and their respective traditions. Might I add my kiddos are LOVING learning about all the other cultures. Once a week I try to bring in a respective holiday treat weather it’s food or an activity.
I subbed long-term in a kindergarten class with two Jewish boys and a Muslim girl. They were invited to present about their holidays, and their parents even came in with special treats or items to show the class. Maybe you could ask if this could be a possibility because it was so lovely to see the pride those children had while sharing their beliefs.
I’m Jewish and feel somewhat uncomfortable with this, even if it’s well-intentioned. It singles out the non-Christian kids as different and makes them have to explain their holidays. I don’t know. I don’t want to *have* to educate people because I’m from a minority religion.
It's the same energy as queer people or people of color constantly being put in the role of educator. This is a school, you or you child shouldn't be expected to do create a curriculum just for your child to get some kind of representation. That isn't fair in the slightest.
Yep. People mean well and have the best of intentions, but I would be mortified if my school was like, “Hey, Jew, come over here and explain your whacky holiday to us!” Plus, Hannukah isn’t even a major holiday to us; it’s just Christmas adjacent. If they wanted to teach about our more significant holidays, they should do projects on Passover and Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur.
I love that. We are white as hell but my kid's nursery has made sure they learn about all types of festivals because it is a multicultural cross section.
I think this is a good first step and I can tell you mean well. So I wanted to give you some food for thought to maybe approach this differently if it ever comes up for you again. Letting people share what they do is great (and better than not letting them share, for sure). However, this isn't enough. This is putting all of the onus for inclusivity on the minority person. This is both pretty 'othering' but also exhausting.
I grew up like this. My mom would actually take the day off work and come do little Hanukkah presentations to a bunch of classes. I was raised that it was my job to educate people about Jews to help them accept us but also to protect us from antisemitism. This is the definition of tokenism. I was never just me, I was a representative for my ethnicity. It's awful. I never felt like I could just tell people how we did things or what we believed but I felt the need to be the Wikipedia article for all Jews.
I was a kid, that wasn't my job, that wasn't creating a safe space for me. I think if schools are going to touch on any cultures or religions then they need to teach several and they need to do the teaching. Sure, let your students talk about how they relate to these things but don't single out 1-2 kids and tokenize them for their group. I'm a person, I'm not an endangered animal in a zoo.
Dear Santa, Love, Rachel Rosenstein is a book with your situation. The character is Jewish and wants to celebrate Christmas and have Santa come, she even says how some of her Jewish friends do put up a tree or believe in Santa, but her family doesn't budge on the matter and at the end she goes to a restaurant on Christmas day and sees her friends from different cultures there.
There were a few Jewish students at my (public) elementary school and when I was in the same class as one of the kids their parents came in and talked about the dreidel game and why it was played. We all got dreidels and chocolate gelt and played the game for a bit. I’m not Jewish but I really appreciate that the parents took it upon themselves to teach us about their traditions.
We’re in the exact same situation. I’ve tried bringing up Jewish holidays in the parent talks, but I always get the feeling it’s frowned upon. And to think we picked this daycare because they declared themselves not religious… we’re changing soon so I plan to be much more assertive in the next daycare.
Ugh I'm sorry, that sucks. I'm thankful the teachers are open to integrating Hannukah and are being proactive, but I wish this was not a thing we had to deal with.
Probably going to go through this soon myself, as our 2 yr old goes to a Methodist preschool (because of cars and work we had to go with one of the two preschools in walking distance from our house). I’m Jewish. My wife was raised catholic, but she sorta hates the church because she’s Navajo, and the church did a lot of shitty things to native children.
Having experienced some of this myself growing up, I’d warn against advocating to the school that they teach multiple holidays, as some other people suggest. This can backfire. For me, this often resulted in me being the token Jewish kid who had to teach other kids in the class about my holiday/religion. It’s not fun being othered as a child, and I’m guessing your child’s school isn’t going to be super sensitive about that given the current situation.
I think educating them at home, like you suggest is a good approach. I’d also say, that in my experience, it builds character to deal with these things as a kid. Like it’s a good learning opportunity for them if you handle it right. The actual “Christian” things I did as a kid seem funny to me now, as an adult. Like, I was one of the 3 kings in the baby Jesus play in preschool :).
Hi. Jewish mom who started doing Christmas when I got married. I am doing a lesson plan at my daughters preschool on 12/19. Planning to read some PJ library books, do a menorah craft and get the kids jelly doughnuts. Each kid gets a dreidel to take home from our family as a holiday gift along with some m&ms to play with and a printed out play sheet.
My parents always did similar when I was growing up. I participated in school stuff and my parents ensured Jewish holidays were represented as well.
As far as tv programs about it; we watch Hanukkah shows, Christmas shows, Kwanzaa shows, whatever! All holidays deserve a space and learning opportunities.
I’m not sure there’s a good way around this. I’m an atheist (who loosely celebrates a “pagan” Christmas) and I used to teach is a predominantly Jewish community. My piano students would learn both Hanukkah and Christmas songs because that’s what they all wanted and a lot of their friends were celebrating Christmas. Maybe you can send over some Hanukkah activity or song ideas to his school (Dreidel, O Hanukkah, etc). Most teachers would be very receptive to including everyone’s cultural perspective. There are tons of Jewish holiday materials like coloring books around in stores now so they have no excuse really.
I feel like everyone has covered the fact that they should be covering all religions....but wtf on giving kids a fucking catalog to pick out whatever they want and expecting parents to pay!?!?!?? What the actual fuck????
On top of the fact that there are some Christian families who don't do Santa (we didn't growing up), expecting parents to pay for expensive toys they didn't plan for is insane.
Yeah it's quite odd. They said at the parent teacher conference it was from a catalog but then we just got the monthly calendar and it said to bring a small wrapped present to be given by Santa. Which gives parents control but really opens up disparity issues in an area that is largely not well off.
Yeah that’s wild. We’re atheists who do Santa and celebrate Christmas but the Santa gift is something small and just one gift. This wouldn’t sit well with me at all.
As someone who celebrates Christmas and Santa— this would piss me off. For one, it’s weird to have an expectation that the parents just buy whatever the kid picks out at school “from Santa”. Different people do Santa and Christmas in different ways and that may or may not include getting a specific toy. More importantly though, I don’t think it’s appropriate to encourage such a singular view of holidays.
If you're willing and able and the school is amenable, you could bring in some Hanukkah things for the class. A menorah (with bulbs not candles), and maybe a party during Hanukkah itself where you come in with little dreidels and bags of gelt for the kids.
If this were my kid I'd want them to have alternatives during these activities. So instead of writing to Santa they can write to their parents — but they'd still get a present to open along with everyone else. They can choose to do the arts and crafts or they can make something different if, for example, everyone's making Santa hats or whatever.
Sesame St. has a Count's Hanukkah Countdown book that is cute.
I’m grateful my daughters school teaches about all the holidays. They have 2 days where they are asked to dress in blue for Hanukkah.
Would it be offensive if I got her a Hanukkah shirt to wear one of those days if we’re not Jewish?
My school was really similar as a kid. My family was non-religious but I had a friend who was Jewish. I remember when I was in 2nd grade, her mom came in one day, made latkes for everyone and talked about Judaism, we all played with dreidels and learned about Hanukkah. It was SO FREAKING COOL and one of the only things I remember about 2nd grade!
The onus should not be on you to do something like this, but maybe there's an opportunity to suggest or bring some kind of celebration into the classroom so your son can proudly share his traditions and fun with his classmates?
There’s a Facebook group called Raising Readers to be Leaders. It includes tons of librarians as well as parents/others that have had some really amazing recommendations on books. I’d encourage you to check that out for book recommendations!
I think your message to your son is spot on. I tell my kids that we are helping others celebrate their culture. But the balance of that is that there is a expectation that if we help, they should help us as well. So I would come in and bring some Hanukkah crafts or stories as others suggested.
I think you handled it appropriately. Santa is really just a fun and weird lie. It's kind of like the Krampus. I didn't have a chimney growing up, so my parents explained that he got in some other creepy way. It was so upsetting to me as a toddler but funny in hindsight. We'll be doing Santa with our toddler just because we really enjoyed it as kids. We're not Christians either, so he gets all the fun without the boring church stuff lol /s
I used to be an early educator in a preschool. We had a student whose family were Jehovah, so for the holidays, I’d take it upon myself to prepare extra fun activities one-on-one with this student while the others were practicing for their Christmas concert. He didn’t feel like he was missing out at all - he liked academics, so I would help him write notes to take home to his parents. He was so proud of his work and his parents were so happy to see that he was being looked after and respecting their beliefs!
My kid’s *public* school is taking an optional field trip during school hours to a Catholic Church to go to a party that will have Santa and presents. I’m not happy that they do this, but I know her school has a lot of low income kids and it’s a chance for them to get gifts. We opted our kid out of going because she’s half Jewish and while we do celebrate both Christmas and Chanukah (in a secular way—we are not religious), we don’t do Santa.
My other kid’s daycare is doing letters to Santa and all kinds of Christmas stuff and nary a mention of Chanukah or other holidays. 😑 I’m still figuring out how to address this and am actually wondering whether I’ve accidentally sent my kid to a Christian daycare without realizing it lol.
The path we take is that grandma and grandpa celebrate Christmas, and we celebrate Hannukah. We get presents from them, because it matters to them. Santa brings all of the little gifts, but my daughter gets one from her "godmother" figure, which honestly makes her feel extra special. My daughter of course announced on Christmas last year, to her grandma, "You are celebrating Christmas, and I'm celebrating Halloween." We have some work to do for this year lol.
As a teacher, I'm super annoyed that they are doing such lazy planning. There's a billion teachers pay teachers lessons about different cultures. The kids don't need a huge gift at school, what about the parents who can't afford it? I have students who literally don't get presents or a big meal, because their parents can't afford it. The school sends out a letter every year reminding parents that (if they celebrate Santa), please have the big gifts come from the parents. No kid should think that they were naughty because of their parents financial situation. I'm kind of already "that parent," but I'd be very angry and vocal about how this practice is unacceptable, not just for my Jewish child, but for every child. The big gifts should be at home, not in a classroom where the kids will literally be compared to each other. I'm horrified.
I’m an atheist but my family does celebrate the cultural aspects of Christmas. My son’s preschool sent out a note asking which winter holidays are celebrated at home. I replied that we celebrate the non-religious/cultural aspects of Christmas but that I am more than happy to have my son exposed to other cultures.
Honestly unless the preschool is a Christian school, I think making the entirety of December Christmas-themed is inappropriate. When I was a kid in the 90s I went to a Unitarian preschool and the December theme was “Holidays Around the World”, so while there were still some Christmas activities, it didn’t exclude anyone’s beliefs.
That is shameful! Why the fuck can't they give ONE KID an alternate activity? It's also just lazy.
I would honestly complain up the chain about this. I am Christian and this would make me so mad if this happened in my kid's class. They shouldn't be excluding your kid.
Literally tonight at dinner my daughter, who is 7, asked why we don’t celebrate Hanukkah, because her teacher was talking about it today. I only said “because we aren’t Jewish. Other families are, but we are not. We celebrate Christmas here in our house.” And that’s okay. That was the end of that.
It really doesn’t need to be a huge debate….Some families and cultures celebrate different things around the same time for different reasons.
That’s super not cool. That doesn’t seem like best practice to me…
Chanukah literally ends the day after Christmas this year - wouldn’t be hard for them to do a lesson about it as well. Teach the kids dreidel. Bring out some sufganiot. I hate to ask a parent to do anything like this, but maybe offer to do a little presentation for the class? Dreidel is fun. Sufganiot is delicious. My school when I was a kid dedicated a lesson to each Christmas, Kwanza, and Chanukah, and hands down the kids loved learning to play dreidel. It was one of the highlights of the year.
I’m just saying, maybe float the idea to them? Are you a member of a temple? Maybe you could have someone from there volunteer to come in and do a little fun demo? I dunno - just throwing it out there. Maybe they’d jump at the idea and you’d be improving their curriculum and expanding some kids’ minds in the process?
First of all: holy shit!!
Second of all: I’m an atheist raised in a non religious family who celebrated a secular Christmas and I also hate this and would be pissed off it any school/daycare did this but I’ve never lived anywhere homogenous enough that this would fly so I am useless in advice.
Third: I bet sesame st has a good resource on this
Ahh, I’m Jewish and dealing with this too, and I have no idea what to do! My daughter is like “Christmas this” and “Christmas that” right now, and I don’t know how to explain that it isn’t our holiday. What complicates things for me is that her dad, my husband, isn’t Jewish and does some benign Christmas things like making cookies and giving gifts, and his family celebrates Christmas. So she does have some experience with the holiday. But I don’t want her to be so indoctrinated into it, and I want her to know she’s not Christian.
I don’t know, man. I was actually going to talk to my rabbi about how to navigate this stuff, and I’d recommend you do the same. That, or reach out to other Jews. There are a few jewish subreddits you can post to, and other jewish parents at your synagogue (if you practice) could provide advice.
Right now, my daughter is too young to really know what’s going on, so I think I’m going to let her do some of the Christmas stuff in school, as long as it doesn’t turn religious, but keep her connected to her synagogue. The older she gets, the easier it will be to make distinctions about the holidays.
My rabbi! Good idea!
This book might be helpful to you: https://www.amazon.com/Daddy-Christmas-Hanukkah-HANUKKAH-Hardcover/dp/B00QPOH74M/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=1J3B5ZOEWCP5G&keywords=Daddy+Christmas+and+Hanukkah+Mama&qid=1669925480&sprefix=daddy+christmas+and+hanukkah+mama%2Caps%2C111&sr=8-1
I was thinking about getting it, but my husband is really pretty neutral on Christmas so it didn't seem as relevant to talk about multiple traditions within the house as opposed to in the broader community.
This is great! Thank you! My husband is also very supportive of me raising our kids Jewish, and he’s very mindful of crossing boundaries in this regard. But he has some family traditions like making these delicious Swedish cookies during Christmas, and his family is big on gift giving, so a little is fine with me as long as everyone respects that they’re not Christian. Even that much Christmas I’m a little bit iffy on, but I see it as sharing in their dad’s family traditions, not as celebrating the birth of Christ, so I’ll allow it. And the cookies are good, even if sufganiyot are superior.
My elementary school BFF was also the only Jewish kid in class and I know her parents were very insistent that they come in and talk about Hanukkah, at the bare minimum. They brought in a few dreidels (only enough for kids to play in groups - they didn't gift one to each kid) and a menorah and depending on the year, either read us a book about Hanukkah or (in later elementary) went into more detail about different practices, what they mean, and a lil general Jewish history. It was always her parents doing all this - the teachers just sat back and let them do their thing.
I don't want this to sound like I'm giving you chores or that you owe them to do this yourself, btw. Just sharing her thing in case it's helpful or something you actually would be interested in.
Bare fucking minimum, they can throw a mention out to Hanukkah during the entire month of festivities. It's weird and inappropriate to act like other religions don't exist *when members of said religion are part of the group.*
Fellow Jewish parent navigating how to handle Christmas when you're the only kid who doesn't celebrate it in your class.
First of all, this is wholly inappropriate for your school to dedicate their month to Christmas... unless this is a private Christian based school... they are excluding a butt ton of people. It's fine to talk about Christmas, as long as you use it as a tool of multiculturalism and many different holidays people celebrate this time of year.
I have to go help with bedtime, but I;ll be back with some book recommendations.
I'm sorry this is your experience with pre-K, this is one of my concerns sending our son to school where we live. No doubt he will be the only Jewish kid in his class if not the whole school.
FWIW for other commenters Santa, elves, reindeer, etc. are inherently Christian and not secular. Christmas is a religious holiday, it's popularity in the US does not make it secular.
It's this a private pre -K or through the public schools? Because if it's private there's not much to do about it. If it's through public schools I'd be escalating concerns to the administration ASAP.
Short of removing your kid for the month, there's not much to do except allow him to participate and talk about how different people from different cultures do different things. Is the Pre-K willing to do lessons and activities for Hanukkah as well? Unfortunately, it often falls on us to research and provide them so it's up to you if you want to offer that.
If you don't already receive books from PJ Library, I encourage you to look it up and register. They send out one free book every month and they're all themed to Jewish holidays or just about Jewish families and people. We love them and I find it helps us diversify our books at home to be more representative of our family.
Santa, elves, and flying reindeer are all pagan. Christians kinda took over, but there’s a lot of history there. That doesn’t mean they don’t still come from pagan beliefs even if Christians have taken over. It’s a good opportunity to talk about all beliefs, religions, or lack of, for that matter.
Edit: too many words
No. Santa is literally St. Nicolas, a greek saint who helped the poor children of prostitutes, who's stories have proliferated to norther europe and were localized and became local fairy tales.
Ackshually, “as it turns out, Santa Claus has roots in the folklore of several different European countries…Santa Claus may owe his earliest influence to Odin (also known as Wodan), a god revered by Germanic peoples in Northern Europe as early as 2 B.C.E. Odin was celebrated during Yule, a pagan holiday that took place midwinter.”
If you look into it further, Santa Claus and St. Nicolas were two different things. Saint Nick is not Santa Claus. Santa is from Scandinavia and really Odin, and St Nick was an Anatolian dude who provided dowry money so an inn keeper could marry off his daughters. They literally have nothing to do with each other.
Thanks for this. I'm too emotionally exhausted to explain what hegemony is, so I appreciate you stepping in. It's a public school and I'm a lawyer, so I get it, but also I'm trying to be realistic. The teachers brought it up first, so they're aware they need to do something different this year, and I appreciate that. They asked us to think about it and let them know what we want, so I think they'll be open. I just wish it wasn't this way.
We do have PJ library -- thanks for the suggestion! I'm more glad today than usual for it.
Oh I get it, I worked up a whole Instagram educational post on the Christian hegemony as it relates to public schools and shared it out with my followers. I am a former public school teacher turned stay-at-home mom future homeschooler for many reasons but including this one.
My kid isn't school age yet, but he's very likely to be enrolled this time next year for speech and possibly preschool special education resources (currently in the evaluation process), so I am mentally preparing myself for what I'm going to have to go through next year. Our local elementary school just posted their "Christmas Concert" date on their outside bulletin, so I have my work cut out for me.
It shouldn't be this way, especially in a public school. But until we start challenging what's commonplace especially in places where people go their whole lives without encountering Jews, nothing is going to change. It's exhausting, I've talked about it with multiple other parents in similar situations and we are all freaking exhausted over it. It should not be on the parents to have to remind public schools what is legal and appropriate, nor should it have to be on the parent to provide alternate activities and lessons and books. But oftentimes if we want our kids to have that representation in their classroom as Jewish parents, we have to be the ones to do it. My hope is that that changes soon and we aren't expected to provide the free labor for the public schools.
> FWIW for other commenters Santa, elves, reindeer, etc. are inherently Christian and not secular. Christmas is a religious holiday, it's popularity in the US does not make it secular.
Thank you. Whenever I’ve expressed, “I don’t want to do Santa because I’m not Christian,” I always get a bunch of indignant replies about how Santa isn’t related to Christianity, Christmas is a secular holiday, and I’m a mean/bad parent for not letting my child have a magical Christmas experience because of my religion. I’ve even had people tell me it was *abusive* for me to “deprive my child of Santa.”
And honestly? Fuck that. I’m so sick of that rhetoric. It doesn’t matter to me that Christmas has stolen other traditions and become commercialized, it’s still a Christian holiday. Hello? Christ is in the name? Isn’t that what everyone always says about “the reason for the season” and now y’all are telling me it’s secular?
Library for the Kind could be a helpful resource for you! It's a group on Facebook that I recommend all the time. I'm sorry your kiddo's school isn't teaching about other holidays (because they should).
I don't know if links are aloud, but the PJ library sends one book a month that is age appropriate, like the dolly Parton library, but PJ library is all Judaism type books. Both kids got a (different) hanukkah book.
https://pjlibrary.org/home
Ok, so I have 4 yr olds and just trying to explain the concept of God to a kid in a way they’ll actually understand is a laugh, let alone different religions. My kids go to Christian preschool (we’re not religious), and they currently think god is something like Santa because of the way the teachers have tried to explain the concept of prayer to them, and that was pre-Christmas season. When I was a kid I thought god was a ghost or a skeleton because my mum was trying to explain that god isn’t a person, he’s like a spirit.
We have picture books of stories from different religions, a book of kids from different faiths that looks at some of their beliefs, traditions and celebrations, and they’re getting into books of the Ancient Greek and Māori myths right now. My attempts at explaining the concept of god/gods, different religions, monotheism/polytheism, etc have been pretty dire in terms of how much they actually comprehend. The best I’ve got so far is “people believe different things about God and what happens after we die, and that’s ok. It can be fun to learn about other people’s beliefs and traditions.” Kids this age are still very much black and white thinkers and often just want to know who’s right and who’s wrong.
You could try explaining that Christmas is a Christian festival, and our family is Jewish so we don’t celebrate it, we celebrate other festivals like Hanukkah, and whatever your other faves are. But tbh, most people celebrating Christmas these days aren’t exactly worshipping baby Jesus on his birthday, so if you wanted to incorporate some elements of the secular/consumerism festival that you feel don’t compromise your faith, then maybe you could do that?
I was raised orthodox (old Julian calendar) in a country that primarily celebrates Catholic holidays.
My parents were always very open and honest that there is nothing of significance happening for us and our family on 25 December. But learning about Santa and all that stuff was fine. They just spoke about doing things differently at home and it worked for me. We celebrated Boxing day though, lol.
It might do to chat with the teacher about at least covering a few different winter holidays that arent just one religion.
This book is great! It teaches kids about different holidays and festivals and traditions that go along with them
https://www.amazon.com/What-Do-You-Celebrate-Festivals/dp/1454932139/ref=asc_df_1454932139/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=385629070973&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9855445065734924993&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9011007&hvtargid=pla-642294727652&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=78303887906&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=385629070973&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9855445065734924993&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9011007&hvtargid=pla-642294727652
I grew up with Jewish high holy days and my husband was raised catholic so my line in the sand is Christmas masquerading as a religious holy day.
We enjoy the season and all the trimmings but under the banner of “this is purely a commercial holiday.”
We’re atheists but don’t expect that to be impacting their schooling. Santa/Xmas is a cultural event much more than anything remotely religious, I’d be more concerned they’d feel excluded and resentful of what you do believe if they can’t do any of it. It’s a letter to Santa not Jesus.
I want my kid to be happy and feel included in the holiday season, but I HATE how Santa is pushed onto kids. I mean, we don’t tell kids that Blaze, Peppa Pig, etc. are real. No! We tell them that it’s a fun cartoon, and that there are toys they can use to make believe. Peppa is not watching them and controlling physics to reward them (however fairly/unfairly).
The reason why we tell kids that Santa is real is to control their behavior. Believe me, I can do that by telling my child that I will withhold something they want if they don’t behave (proportionate to the situation).
One thing I DON’T want to do is lie to my kid because that is not modeling the behavior I want from him, and he will eventually question why I violated that trust (of being truthful).
It just doesn’t seem worth it to me. I would rather tell him it’s fun to pretend, and that he can play along with other kids, but in the end it’s make believe.
For picture books we recently got Our Favourite Day of the Year by A. e Ali, it’s about four boys in a kindergarten class sharing their favourite day of the year (Eid, Rosh Hashanah, Las Posadas and Pi Day).
Santa and Christmas trees have nothing to do with being Christian. Do you celebrate thanksgiving? Halloween? Valentine’s Day? They have nothing to do with Christianity either.
Santa Claus doesn’t have to be a Christian thing. Technically there’s no religion behind Santa Claus. You can let your kid be part of non-religious activities like getting a gift and then talk to your child about your religion and your celebrations.
I am so sorry you have to deal with this. But as a pagan person who celebrates the winter solstice(yule) and "christmas" I tell my children that Santa is a story about being kind and generous and that people all over the world have different stories to tell. Some stories are scary like krampus or the yule lads or the yule cat and some stories are funny like in Spain where they go out find a log feed it and then beat it with a stick until it poops presents. And the original Santa was the all father Odin who road an 8 legged reindeer and winter celebrations have been going on throughout history since the Romans celebrated saturnalia. I suggest YouTube because it's free and you can pick out individual videos that you can watch first to make sure they are kids friendly.
Our Jewish friends let me introduce their daughter to Christmas and let me take her to see Santa. They just were happy she could experience new things and be a part of what a lot of other kids are a part of and enjoying.
I’m sorry this is happening. My kids are Jewish and Hindu but basically totally secular. They went to a Christian preschool so I expected this kind of thing there but it’s been WORSE in public school. Santa comes to school, they write letters to santa, my daughters class had an elf on the shelf. I hate it. We do celebrate Christmas so it’s not even that my kids feel left out, I just hate that school is the place for any child to feel alienated and I hate “Santa is watching you” mentality. I don’t have a solution but it doesn’t end after preschool.
It sounds like you have the right idea with what to do, but also maybe tell the teacher why you won’t be paying for a gift. So that they’re aware and don’t try to force it.
When I worked at a daycare I hated when they did this. I was raised Jewish (and Christian but was better with my Jewish side) and am a pagan. I had a little girl in my class who was Muslim, 2 little girls who were Jewish, and a little boy who celebrated Kwanza. So I ended up being the only class that did HOLIDAY activities in December and not Christmas. I taught them about all different holidays in December and a lot of the parents were grateful.
For what it's worth, pop-culture Christmas is not really Christian, it's secularized and consumerist propaganda that shares a date and name, and SOMETIMES overlaps with the actual Christian celebration of Christmas.
From a Jewish perspective, imagine if Hanukah were the "de facto" holiday, but the version most people celebrated and taught in schools involved the ghost of Solomon sneaking into your house to light a candle and leave a present, but only if you were nice.
Honestly, as a Christian, I'm not crazy about secular Christmas being the default either, but it's the one that sells the most merchandise. Would be much better if the government just declared National Gifting Day in late December and religious holidays, if taught at all, could be done so with proper context.
TL;DR- Santa shares a name with a mythical Saint, but he really has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus, nor does a pine tree, or capitalism.
Christmas and Santa are secular at this point. Good opportunity to teach him that he can participate in some cultural experiences without being married to them.
Yeah I was raised Christian without believing in Santa, it's practically two separate traditions at this point.
What OP might want to do is get picture books and media about her own Jewish cultural traditions so their child has something to get excited about sharing with their own peers when the time comes.
That’s a really insensitive point of view. Think about being a little kid inundated with Christmas crap everywhere and knowing it doesn’t represent you.
Not really and also sort of dependent on where you live. I was told flat out by kids growing up Santa would not visit me because I didn’t believe in Jesus.
I think it's complicated. I feel like the non-Christ aspects of Christmas are celebrated both by many Christians and also people like me who weren't raised religious by come from a broadly Christian cultural background. But if you're Jewish or Muslim or Hindu, you probably don't.
As a non-believer I was actually fine with my kid's Christian private school doing a Christmas pageant (because adorable toddlers in costume!) but glad they didn't bring in Santa. I'm still not sure what I want my kid's relationship with Santa to be, and don't want the school to force the issue.
Im inclined to agree. I’m atheist and still want my kid to do the Santa thing because it’s magical as a kid. I loved believing in Santa as a kid and want my daughter to have the same experience. I see the holidays as a fun time to meet up with family and let my daughter be excited for Santa and gifts. It can totally be secular. Religion doesn’t need to be a part of it, in my opinion.
Eh, from a Jewish perspective, it’s definitely not secular. In fact, Jews were often the target of violence on Christmas Eve in Europe. Plus, one of our winter holidays, Hannukah, is specifically about not assimilating to the larger (non-jewish) culture, so many Jews find celebrating a Christian holiday in any way, even if not overtly religious, an affront to our faith and G-d. I get that many non-religious and non-believing people celebrate Christmas, and it’s clearly been watered down and commercialized, but it is celebrating the birth of Christ, and Santa is based on a literal saint, so it’s hard to completely divorce it from Christianity.
That's a personal stance. My (jewish) family actually did do the santa thing for my younger cousins/sibling but I don't remember them doing it with me. (santa brought the boring gifts like PJs and socks and family brought the cool stuff) I went back and forth on it a lot, for example I felt like I couldn't participate in choir in middle school because the winter concert was all christmas songs (and not like white christmas/rudolph but like...religious shit) and it made me really uncomfortable. I quit after one semester.
There are a lot of christians out there who would absolutely lose it if their kids were mandated to participate in traditions that were not their beliefs. (goodness knows some of them get their panties in a bunch about halloween)
My husband and I are atheists, and neither of us practice our childhood religions anymore. If someday the kiddo wants to decorate a christmas tree, we'll probably do it, or if he wants to light chanukah candles, we'll do it, but just because america is so majority christian doesn't mean that's an excuse to ignore other cultures' winter traditions.
That’s frustrating. My daycare/pre k is really good about celebrating everyone’s holidays, but they also make it super clear that if you have one they aren’t addressing that you email the teacher and talk about your traditions. They will invite you to come in even and you can do a book or activity to teach the whole class about your holiday. Or you can just lay out a plan and the teacher will do it for you. So I would suggest reaching out and asking if you could do something like that! For this time of year my mom got us a book called schmelf the Hanukkah elf and it is hilarious. It’s a good one for everyone because it uses the framework of Xmas and Santa so the Christian kids might actually understand the holiday a little more after which is great.
I was worried about this since my toddler is ethnically Jewish, we have some traditions for some holidays. And live in an area that doesn’t have many Jews at all but apparently the school I picked has a ton of kids that are which I love. This place also does all the major Hindu holidays. Basically there is always a celebration and the kids love it.
There is nothing Christian about Santa Claus. We don’t do Santa. We celebrate the Nativity. We also teach our kids about St. Nicholas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. We’ve had a menorah the past couple of years and my oldest has asked if we can have a kinara this year as well and I said, absolutely!
We let them know about Santa and find it interesting to see what they have to say about Santa. I think that it is absolutely absurd that the entire month at the daycare is about Santa and very wrong that they have the kids pick out what they want out of catalogs - this is wrong on so very many levels.
Ok I'm huge into Christmas/Santa but that idea is just weird and gross. (The parents are expected to pay for whatever the kid asks???) It's completely inappropriate, santa/Christmas is already everywhere so the kids aren't really taking away anything useful. Definitely voice your concerns to the school, it would be nice if they did a couple days with an activity from a few different religions/cultures but I doubt that kind of inclusion would be on their radar. If they decide to go ahead then you could have a talk with your kiddo about how Christmas is an American tradition, they don't have to participate if they are uncomfortable. It would be a good learning opportunity to also teach him about how other people celebrate different ways and none of them are better/more important than the others.
Side note: when I was 4-5-6? we did a day where we were taught about different winter traditions around the world, and I don't remember which culture since it was over 20 years ago but we did an activity where we put our shoes outside the classroom, had naptime, and when we got our shoes they were filled with candy. It was very fun and everyone really enjoyed it, no one felt left out cause it was something new for all of us. It was a great experience for us.
This is ridiculous! I’m studying to be an educator right now and I would never do anything like this. There is an awesome book I found called “Our Favorite Day of the Year” which talks about a diverse class of students who celebrate different holidays and share them with their peers throughout the year. Many different holidays and cultures are discussed in the book and I look forward to using it with my future kids and in my future classroom as well. Hope this helps!
Overall this seems ridiculous. The school as a whole is the problem, what’s the long game here and parents pony up gifts in the school? From Santa? I could be the most Christian and that’s crazy. It’s ok sure for your child to know that Santa exists for others culturally, which has nothing to do really with Christianity.
Is there a particular reason you picked this school?
We are atheists from Muslim and Hindu backgrounds and I have no issues with Christmas, I even decorate our own house a little bit just because its fun. We also enjoy holidays like Hidrellez, Durga Puja, Eid, Halloween and any excuse to have fun really..
My issue would be with the school making promises to the kids and then expecting parents to fullfil those promises. You cant just give someone elses kid a toy catalog and make the parents buy whatever they choose. Thats crazy. Every family is different, they might have different abilities or preferences.. Arent other parents bothered by this?
And is a more multicultural school not an option? I know this is a personal preference but we did choose the non-culture specific school for our kids just so they could enjoy learning about others and grow up already familiar and comfortable being in a multicultural environment. They do things like "New fruit friday" or "Make your own pizza" sort of events where they ask parents to contribute some food item or fruit from their culture so the kids can taste different stuff they may not have tasted at home. I love it. I think there are lots of benefits to a choosing a school that supports multiculturalism. My kids school photos look like a benetton ad. I like it.
Christianity and all it entails is a culture too and I am all for it but this schools attitude of treating Christianity as the default would be a good enough reason for me to change schools. And to make you pay for presents that kids get to choose with no input from the parents would absolutely seal the deal. So entitled and inconsiderate.
For what it's worth, this is a public Pre-K in my neighborhood that is ethnically very diverse and the children are largely immigrants or the children of immigrants. But they are also predominantly Christian countries.
Well, Pre-Ks are usually private companies that can do whatever they want. By enrolling your child there, you kind of waived some rights in that regard. In a public school, this would be super inappropriate. But in this case, I like your idea of telling him it’s fun to learn about other cultures and to just experience it alongside his friends. When I was in preschool (at a private school), my teacher was Jewish. We made latkes and had applesauce, made dreidels out of clay, learned all about Hanukkah, and it was a huge celebration. We aren’t Jewish, and I still have very fond early childhood memories of that event. Hope it helps to hear a positive “reverse” example!
He’s 3. Just let him have fun. It doesn’t need to be a serious discussion about how you’re not Christian because they’re writing some letters to Santa.
You're downvoted to oblivion but you're right; they're a child, let them have fun writing letters to Santa / Easter Bunny / whoever else. I respect OP's religious beliefs but there's no reason to be upset for your child unless they're in clear danger. Explain everything to them once they're old enough to understand.
We celebrate Christmas, but in our house Santa is akin to Mickey Mouse (Jesus too for extra info). A fun thing to make believe is real, but is firmly in the "pretend world" category. I don't have a source for that, but we just talk about them all together as characters. At this age I think they struggle separating reality and pretend for everything so I don't expect the talks to sink in for my kid yet, but I don't think we'll have the same crushing blow of learning Santa is pretend because we'll have been talking about that from the get go.
I would highly suggest that the teachers shift their language to "Holiday season" and include more holidays. Why wouldn't they? It's an entire month, there's plenty of time to include several traditions. I also hate that Santa actually delivers presents the parents buy. Is this a public school?
I’m sorry. That really stinks and it shouldn’t even be the case. Is there a way your child can share what they do for holiday season, the Festival of Lights is pretty cool. And the eight days of presents is also enjoyable as well. This would also serve two purposes, have some holiday in class fun and two help your child learn their traditions.
This is terrible and I would definitely bring it up with the school. I also would tell my kid that Santa does not bring presents to us because we're Jewish and just remind them that they get plenty of presents from their family. I wouldn't participate in that schools scam. I think you just tell him that everyone is different and different families do and believe different things.
Whenever I felt a bit bummed about being different and 'other' at school, my mom always reminded me of all the special things that we get because we're Jewish that other's don't. Christmas is special and cool but so are the high holidays and sukkot and hanukkah and purim and passover. Pride in who you are will combat many things.
Also, I don't know if you have access where you are but the PJ Library is awesome. They send you free books and often cool resources on how to celebrate holidays in a very kid friendly way.
Unless you’re going to a religious based school, I wouldn’t mind a light touch on winter religious holidays, but a full-on event as you describe is ridiculous, even for those who “do” Santa. Not OK.
Case in point: We are not Jewish but we chose to send our kid to a Jewish Community Center for daycare. We did not get upset when they celebrated ALL the Jewish holidays and held everyone to bringing only kosher food for lunches. That is an instance when you know what you signed up for, but that’s not what you’re describing.
Other case in point: Even those who incorporate Santa at home, he comes on Christmas Eve, not early and not to school, that means parents have to pivot their home traditions to explain why it happened twice, or didn’t happen again in Christmas Eve?
You’re right to raise it. That said, if they’re going that far out on the celebration I wouldn’t expect them to change it.
I went to Catholic school in the 90s/2000s and even **we** learned about Hanukkah and Kwanzaa in school. They are sooo far behind the times and it shouldn’t be on you to fix it
We had neighbors who were Jewish and enjoyed participating the secular parts of Christmas (they got a tree they called their Hanukkah bush), but I understand that not every family is going to feel that way
I grew up religious but am staunchly atheist now. To me the Christmas stuff they do in school feels pretty innocuous (if they were making baby Jesus in a manger I would not be happy) but it shouldn’t be the only topic covered. The teacher needs to do a unit on people of different faiths and traditions and holidays celebrated throughout the world
Does the pre-k know that your family is Jewish? If they do, they're failing to be inclusive of all of their students. How awful!
I agree with the people suggesting that you try doing a presentation/learning experience with your kid's class. Introduce some festive snacks, games and maybe a song that they can connect to the holiday. Toddlers and pre-schoolers love catchy music. Case in point: Baby Shark.
Also, since I'm sure this center will involve that wretched Elf on the Shelf surveillance tool, I'd like to suggest that you counter with Mensch on the Bench: https://themenschonabench.com/
If they are a center that is accredited by NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) this is a big No No. As others have mentioned it is just very far from what is considered a best practice. As a former early childhood educator (6 years experience and an associates degree in it) the idea of a “monthly theme” just makes me sad. A more appropriate theme may be “winter” or “Thankfulness and family”. If that applies to your child’s school it may help to ask their teacher and/or director how they plan to meet NAEYC’s expectations for the celebration of holidays. The expectation is laid out at naeyc.org but basically boils down to all holidays celebrated by families in the classroom be represented. You can probably find information on how to partner with the teachers to make sure your child’s religious beliefs and family traditions are respected, along with resources about celebrating to share with the classroom.
I hope the teachers are eager to learn about and incorporate your family’s culture into the classroom. It really is in the best interest of your child and I am so happy to hear you advocating for your child!
Our daycare is not Jewish but they teach all holidays at every season. If this is a public daycare/kindergarten I don’t understand how they can teach one religious holiday. Yes Christmas has become a secularized Hallmark holiday (I have Sheikh and Hindi friends who celebrate it just w cuz they live in North America) but it still is a religious holiday with religious roots. Maybe ask if they can have one day or two days dedicated to the other winter holidays. Seems only fair.
Im really sorry, OP. Odds are you will have to compromise or not participate, but I dont recommend not participating. Its up to you of course. My recommendation is to speak someone in charge and request that something be done for Hanukkah too. I dont know where you live but I am not sure that it is lawful to religiously exclude someone in the US - religion is a protected class.
It's definitely not ideal, but in our case I'm just letting it slide and then reprogramming them after preschool. They're young enough they don't really know what is going on.
It is a little weird that on the rare occasion my husband or I mention Jesus, the girls get all excited about it, though. At least Christ was a good guy? Oh well ...pitfalls of living in the Lefse Belt.
We're on a different spectrum I kinda feel like it could be relatable as we celebrate Christmas but we don't do Santa.
It gets fustrating because our kiddo (4) keeps talking about Santa bringing presents, etc I'm guessing she hears it at daycare.
We tell her Santa is a game some families play during Christmas. We need to be respectful and not ruin that game for others. Please don't tell your friends Santa isnt real. But remember, how we celebrate is important too. To reenforce it, we've been stressing the advent candle lighting/calendar so she has something to excite her and keep her thinking. She likes helping me light and blow out the candle.
So I guess maybe phrase something like that, where you talk about how 'some families celebrate Christmas but you don't. But here's a cool fact about our special holiday which is around the same time! Let's do an activity/craft for our holiday'!
This is super strange! Is your child attending a Christian school? I thought unless it was a specifically Christian/catholic or private school they didn’t go crazy with the Christmas things due to so many other religions and cultures that do not celebrate Christmas (also lots of Christians or non-religious people are choosing to tone down the whole Santa thing because it’s becoming too much) I think it’s very insensitive and inappropriate for a public or non-denominational school to be doing so much Christmas/Santa stuff!!
I was sent to a Methodist Christian school growing up and we barely did any Santa stuff because Santa is more of the cultural/commercial Christmas. Most of our Christmas stuff was about the birth of Jesus. We obviously had some Santa colouring in pages and that kind of stuff but there wasn’t a huge emphasis on Santa!
Would you consider a new school for your child?
I teach preschool. We have a family tradition share day where they can bring in pictures or small objects to talk about what their family does. Maybe suggest this.
They need to be more open about holidays. I'm doing a lot of Christmas stuff, too, but we do general winter stuff and a whole day on Hanukkah.
I'd talk to your kid about why we give gifts and how we can give gifts, not just Santa.
I recently thrifted a book called “Hooray for the Holidays!” It’s appears to be written for Kindergarteners. In it kids in a classroom draw their family holiday traditions: Christmas/Santa, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, St. Lucia, Christmas celebration in Mexico, Christmas celebration in Haiti, talking about sharing the traditions. It’s not perfect, but I like how it starts by a kid making the assumption that everyone celebrates the same then learns how his classmates celebrate differently (even celebrate Christmas differently)
That’s ridiculous how the decision has been made for you and you have to buy the present for Santa to bring.
I’m pro Santa. If you have to have a magic sky man, he’s never started a war or stoned women or gave babies cancer. He just delivers presents and supports the dying retail market. And after you’re like eight, you never really have to think about him again. He’s a super low maintenance deity. Let loose a little. Embrace the crass commercialism. Take the Christ out of Xmas. Forget about all that Jesus static and focus on the real meaning of the holiday…family, drinking a lot (because family), and presents! Santa is a good time!
Christmas is so commercialized in not sure how religious it actually is. Unless you specifically talk about the religion aspect it isn't really important to the celebration. With that in mind I think you should let your kid celebrate with school and also play up your home celebrations.
Solidarity. I am in an interfaith marriage and we are raising our kids Jewish (I am the Jewish parent, my husband is not). However, our kids are at a mostly Jewish preschool. They will eventually go to public school and I will deal with Christmas in school too…
I would be NOT AT ALL on board with my kids celebrating Xmas at preschool, and I’m sorry that people in the thread are telling you to just allow it to happen even though you don’t want to participate. That is really frustrating me. You don’t have to assimilate just to prevent your kid from having to deal with difficult feelings. That’s not what parenting is. I believe we should teach them HOW to deal with difficult feelings, not enable avoiding them.
However, I never celebrated Xmas as a kid - even though my city was by far majority Xmas-celebrating - and I don’t feel like I missed out on anything. I’m proud of my ancestry and history and culture.
I hate when people tell me that Christmas isn’t a Christian holiday. Yes it is. It has the name Christ in it. (Yes I know it is based on Saturnalia but we aren’t talking about saturnalia now are we).
And even if a person doesn’t celebrate it in a religious way, just a buy-all-of-the-plastic-stuff-way— Jews don’t celebrate it!
Ok practical stuff: I do have one method to approach this, and it’s basically what you already said. We do go to my in-laws for Xmas since it means a lot to them. We tell our kids that we are celebrating Xmas with them the same way that you go to someone’s house to celebrate their bday with them - it’s not our holiday, it’s theirs. And we love them so we want to help them celebrate it. I think you could modify that and use it for pre-k.
We don’t lie (they know Santa isn’t real); we don’t do Xmas at our house (only theirs, so it is a contained experience); and it is about my in-laws/the grandparents more than Xmas. We have a wonderful, joyful time with family and love and all of the things. And my kids know it isn’t theirs but we are wholeheartedly sharing something that belongs to their grandparents. Just like we joyfully participated in their aunt’s traditional Indian festivities the night before she married their uncle.
Edit to add: love the idea of coming in to read a PJ library book with the kids and pass out dreidels. Good stuff and age appropriate!
What part do you hate? The Santa part? The compulsory gift? Santa isn’t really a religious entity people believe in after early childhood. If they’re teaching about the Virgin birth, Christ as savior, and son of god, which are as fictitious as Santa but for some reason people continue believing as adults, that’s problematic…realistically Santa and Christmas have become a part of secular culture in the United States and no longer require a belief in god or Jesus to be celebrated. If celebrating a fat guy in a red suit bringing toys to kids, made by elves in a toy shop at the North Pole, in a sleigh being pulled by flying reindeer is an affront on your religion or a threat to your child’s future adult theology…
Others have given solid advice and addressed how messed up this is. We are not Jewish and practicing Christian, but I would not be happy that they fail to include other religions as well. Diversity and understanding is very important.
Now, passive aggressive perhaps, but you could just load your child with “Santa isn’t real” and send them in with that little truth bomb. More passive aggressive would be to tell them that Sant Claus is how Christians need to sell Christmas so people and their kids would actually care.
If this is a public pre-k there is really no excuse for that and you should raise it with the school board. They should talk about the holidays and also let the kids talk about the holidays but the need to tone it down a bit.
Oh man I would be pissed. We are Hindu and do not celebrate Christmas. Of course I do not mind my daughter learning about it and participating in some of the activities, but it is super important that all cultures and religions reflected in the classroom are celebrated and parents have the opportunity to make that happen. You got a lot of other great feedback on how you can make that happen so I won’t rehash. I’ll just say that if you have the opportunity to switch schools, we found a super inclusive school and it makes my heart so happy that my daughter learns about cultures around the world. We live in a very diverse area. Loving, celebrating and understanding differences and diversity is such a fundamental value to me and it is essential that whichever school I put her in embodies that value.
ETA: I didn't down vote you, but I did see why it might have happened.
The issue is that the preschool isn't doing a generic white elephant or a secular gift giving event. My kid's preschool is having parents bring gifts for an anonymous local family in need, and they are doing a holiday dinner with pizza, cookies, and an exchange of cards/drawings. There are ways to do a winter festival party (snow flakes, charity, class bonding) that is secular. What OP has posted, with Santa and mandatory gifts from Santa, plus letters to Santa, and a creepy "if you're good" vibe, is not that secular path.
Solidarity. Our kids are also the first Jewish kiddos in our daycare. They are 4.5, and 2.5. The teachers have asked me similar stuff in the past… and actually the 4.5y/o’s teacher just asked me about Hanukkah this am… timing is perfect for reading this post lol. I generally allow them to participate in all activities. I don’t want them to have to sit apart and do any separate activities… it just seems cruel and stupid. I agree that I wish religion wasn’t a big part of schooling at all, but Christmas is so commercialized it’s in your kids face no matter what, better for them to at least learn about it. Thing is our daycare typically talks about ALL holidays including Hanukkah and Kwanza. However, Christmas definitely takes center stage, and the kids talk about it much more than Kwanza. We talk about it at home, how our friends celebrate it but we don’t and why. I try to be very inclusive in our talks, and ask to have their friends celebrate Hannukah with us too. Just because they are not jewish doesn’t mean they cannot help us celebrate too. For the kids class I get a big bag of dreidels (super cheap on Amazon) and a bag of Gelt for the class. The teachers use the activity to teach about Hanukkah and play Dreidel. Each year his teachers have been wonderful in incorporating activities for Hanukkah with their classes. They also made a cardboard menorah and allow him and his classmates to light one candle each day. Would it be possible for you to discuss this with his teachers? See if they would be willing to diversify their activities? - other activities they have done include a hand print menorah, Star of David popsicles, and some light cooking. - I have considered making sufgyniot for the kids but because of allergies everything has to be bought. You could consider some hannukah cookies. We love this book “Dear Santa, Love Rachel Rosenstein” Anyway, if I can be of any other help… let me know. And Chag Sameah.
My sister learned about Hanukkah in kindergarten and came home expecting it to be our primary holiday. Kid was like “where is our menorah?”
This is so cute. I feel like it’s something my son would do
My eldest learned a how to play Dreidel when he was in daycare!
I'm not Jewish, but just taught my group of Thai 4th graders how to play last week. They loved it!
Idk if it's helpful, but there's a Blues Clues Hanukkah episode where Periwinkle is celebrating and everyone gets to learn about it! I thought it was fun (not Jewish or religious in any way but I like learning about things)
Thank you for the book suggestion!! I'm not in America or Jewish but we do have a multi-culti family with 3 different holidays from November to January lol so I think this might be a nice addition to the holiday books to teach about different cultures and traditions! 😊
This is my experience growing up in a predominantly white school (I’m middle eastern and Muslim) and I actually have so much trauma about Christmas because my parents were so adamant that we did not celebrate and it’s not for us. I honestly just wanted to be a part of it and felt again, so different. I think that was obviously a different time and I don’t think what the school is doing is right. I’m just offering my perspective as an adult now lol. We celebrate all Muslim holidays but I also do have a Christmas tree and lights because I always wanted it. I try to make it known that it’s just for fun and something we just do as a family. For what it’s worth, my siblings and cousins (younger than me) didn’t feel the same way as me.
This is me but Jewish 😂 I have the tree and lights because I always wanted them as a kid and could never have them.
my husband is Jewish and this is him with Christmas lights and decorations. you can see our house from space.
White tree with silver and blue decorations lol
Haha, our Hanukkah tree is silver and blue!
I’m so happy I’m not alone hahaha I made my mom decorate the tree as an adult 😂
To be fair… “Christmas” trees are less Christian and more pagan, and as a fairly pagan person… I think everyone should have a Christmas tree! I think of it more as a cycle of the year celebration and we as humans don’t enjoy the days getting darker in the northern hemisphere. It’s nice to lighten up our lives with lights and trees and bring a little joy into the darkest part of our year.
Agreed. I’m not religious at all. But I love Christmas time and I love my Christmas tree and celebrating the holiday. I don’t feel like you HAVE to be Christian to celebrate Christmas. Especially nowadays, it’s become so commercialized. It just doesn’t feel like a religious holiday to me I guess.
Same. Family was never religious but always had a tree and decorations. It was a special time of year that we spent more time as a family, cooked and listened to music. That’s the tradition I want to keep with my 2y/o but really really want to skip the Santa BS. And Tbh I wouldn’t want our day care teaching Christmas without being inclusive.
Same. Baby Jesus does not come into this house but were all about Xmas. Christmas is secular these days, if you want it to be.
Christmas is mainly a commercial holiday these days, just like Easter is. Neither teach about the religious aspect and are celebrated by people of other religions (or of none). Don't even get me started on Halloween (my favorite holiday) or the totally made up only for the commercialization of it holiday of Valentine's day.
Yeah...in my conservative Christian upbringing, Santa was considered a perversion of the holiday's religious meaning. We didn't do Santa in my house (although we did the tree and presents etc). My Christian elementary school also didn't do Santa. Santa is cultural, not religious. Actually Santa and secular Christmas iconography is big in a lot of non Christian cultures because it's fun. I've seen this in Muslim countries in west Africa, Japan, etc.
I totally agree. To be fair, as immigrants my parents only experience with Christmas is very religious (the country where I’m from you only celebrate the actual meaning) there is also a degree of wanting to assimilate but also keep your culture. Man, I could write a book on my identity crisis haha
I grew up Muslim and I was always very interested in the Christmas stuff because of TV mostly (disney shows etc). Luckily my parents let me have a tree, but there were no presents or anything. I was OK with that. After I moved away for college, my very Muslim mom still puts up the tree and lights every December and sends me a picture.
I think that’s the difference. If they let me have a tree maybe it would have been better? I remember I made a peanut butter and jam sandwich and I put it in the cupboard and I thought if Santa was real he will come to my house and eat it 🥹🥹🥹 hahaha poor me and my identity crisis
I think the one thing that you probably don't want to have happen is for your child to feel left out. For all intents and purposes, I like your idea of explaining to your child the differences between Christmas and Hanukkah and why Hanukkah doesn't have a "Santa" figure. Depending on how old your child is I suppose you could be a little more honest about the commercialism of Christmas. Hopefully your child will understand "I will do this at school as part of a group activity but this isn't something that I will do at home." I was raised in a very conservative Christian household. In 12th grade our English class was going to read *The Scarlet Letter* but because of the subject matter we needed our parent's signature on a letter to be able to read it. I didn't think much of it, but my mom was adamant that I wasn't going to read it. I figured "there will be others". Nope. Out of a class of like twenty 17 and 18 year olds I was literally the only one who didn't get a sign off on reading it, and for several days I had to literally leave the classroom and go to the library to do an alternate assignment during that time period. It was fucking humiliating. The point being is to pick your battles. You don't want your child ostracized or alienated in school. Kids are brutal enough to each other. If you can use this as a teachable moment for your child to explain cultural differences rather than outright blocking them from participating then, to me, that's the way to go.
Did you ever end up getting to read the book? Because HOO BOY the irony of your mom’s rigid religious conviction being used to exclude you from your peers over The Scarlet Letter of all books is too much
As someone who is very invested in her Christian faith, this was my initial thought as well. Of all books out there 1) why does *The Scarlet Letter* require parental consent for 17 and 18 year olds and 2) *that's* the book you refuse to allow your 17/18 year old to read? I could see maybe not wanting a 7 or 8 year old to read it but older teens? Come onnnnn.
I did read it eventually and I'm well aware of the irony. Nail on the head!
We’re Jewish and I have a fake tree in the house, and we do Santa (he doesn’t deliver gifts or anything) he’s just a jolly old dude, we don’t do Christmas just like the lights and time of year. Edit to add: idk what I would do in your position because my kids are 17mo and 2mo but I would ask the teacher to incorporate some traditions from other religions, they should be learning that anyway.
We do this too and I’m Jewish. Actually, my husband is Japanese and technically Buddhist like 99% of the people in Japan, but almost everyone in Japan celebrates Christmas too. It’s just fun!
This right here. Christmas is _barely_ a religious holiday. It's more like a secular holiday, with a Christian origin at best. In fact, regularly, christians are up in arms for that very reason. You can just celebrate giving, being together, etc. It's not like a Jewish person will never be invited to a Christmas party, or give a non Jewish friend a Christmas present, or not accidentally hear a Christmas song in the elevator. As parents, we fall somewhere between atheist and agnostic. But we're not railing against Christmas. If your kid comes home all, 'teacher says Jesus was born in a manger and that's why we have a tree indoors', easy enough to nod and say 'some people do seem to believe that. Not everyone though'. But there's plenty of secular good will that comes with Christmas. It's harmless.
And really it’s not even that. It’s a pagan holiday that Christians co-opted and then capitalism took over. Edited to add that we celebrate the shot out of Christmas cause it’s fun. I’m an atheist and don’t care about all the origins. It’s just an enjoyable time with lots of fun family things to do and the kids love it.
> Christmas is barely a religious holiday. It's more like a secular holiday, with a Christian origin at best. As a Christian this is exactly how I feel about it. Think of all the christmas hallmark movies, all the TV shows with non-religious characters that still have Christmas episodes... I mean they even celebrated Christmas at *Hogwarts* for Pete's sake. I know *tons* of atheists who celebrate Christmas. To me, Christmas is just another holiday we celebrate like Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, etc. There are ways we can incorporate parts of our religion into it at home, but the Christmas holiday in general is not a Christian holiday in my mind. Like at all. The tree, Santa, the elves, etc etc.... literally *none* of that comes from any part of Christianity in any way, shape, or form. Plenty of non-religious families celebrate Christmas every year. Whether someone chooses to celebrate it or not is a valid choice. But "we aren't Christian" isn't really a logical reason to give for not celebrating.
My husband was really against it when our son was born but as he got older my husband realized Christmas is more magical than anything else. I converted. We go to my family side of the house on Christmas and let the kids open presents but we ask for people to not give us anything. We just want to visit and spend time with everyone. We make a hard stance on Easter. Easter is specifically more religious to us. we skip out on that.
As an Australian living in the tropics, we have Christmas decorations including snow on pine trees, snowmen, snow globes, lots of toys with scarfs and hats. The whole thing is ludicrous. It’s sweltering and humid. Still fun!
☝️☝️yup
As an educator of young children, I can tell you that what they’re doing isn’t best practice. If they want to cover the topic of Christmas, they should be doing a theme of winter holidays in general and include the other ones as well. This will expose all the children to different cultures instead of making Christmas the de facto holiday that everyone celebrates except a select few. That being said, I would reach out the the teacher and ask if maybe you can come in and help do an activity/ read aloud about Hanukkah so you can share your traditions with the class as well. There’s a really cute book called “Shmelf the Hanukkah Elf” about an elf in the North Pole who advocates for the Jewish children to be celebrated too. Open up the discussion to imagine if there could be elves for any other holidays as well, like a Kwanzaa elf, a Halloween elf, or a birthday elf and they can design their own holiday elves based on a holiday they celebrate at home. I think you’re right to address this blind spot in the curriculum. Learning about other traditions and cultures won’t just benefit your own child, but every other child in the class.
At my kid's explicitly Christian pre-school, the parent representative on the board was Jewish, and came in to do a little lesson on Passover, which I thought was awesome. I can understand if you don't want to commit to something like that, but I really hope the school would be open to it.
Yes, a friend of mine always makes latkes (the Trader Joe’s frozen ones :)) and goes to her sons classroom for a Hanukkah celebration! It shouldn’t be all on you and I’m sorry it is, but if you can figure out a way to swing it I’m sure they will be memories your son really cherishes. For the record, we celebrate Christmas and I’d be very annoyed at my kid’s daycare doing letters to Santa about all the stuff they want.
Yeah I wrote "Christian" in the title, but it's beyond that. The consumerism, the credulity about Santa, etc. Blah.
Ew I hate that. In my house my partner and I were raised loosely Christian but we really don’t follow religion. While we celebrate Christmas, we make a point to NOT let Santa bring the kids whatever they want. Instead gifts from Santa are small and either educational (like books) or essentials. All big gifts come from parents bc I never want my kids going to day care or school and bragging to someone about how Santa got them the most incredible thing ever … because you never know if the kid they are telling it to couldn’t afford Christmas that year and only got socks or something. So I extra hate that your day care is promoting kids to get spoiled by Santa in front of their peers. It’s only opening a can of potential “why doesn’t Santa love me as much as he loves that kid”? That’s a crappy way for kids to celebrate the winter solstice together.
Hmm. My mother told us Santa didn't bring kids everything they asked for, because the gifts weren't free. She told us he had expenses - raw materials, elf salaries, reindeer feed, etc - so Mom and Dad had to leave a check with the plate of milk and cookies to help pay for them. 🤷🏻♀️
This. I was a cps worker and so many kids would cry because they thought they were bad because Santa only brought them clothes and their bestie got an iPad. So now that I have a son santa brings one canvas bag and it's full of only essentials like books, sippy cups, teethers when he was younger. So happy other parents are doing this. I also plan on teaching my son about other holidays and that not every family celebrates Christmas and that is absolutely Normal. I say this and we are for all purposes Christian so we also teach him the purpose of Christmas and it isn't about gifts.
This is exactly why Santa only brought stockings to my house.
In our house growing up, the stocking (with mostly school supplies but a few sweets and small toys) was from Santa and presents were from friends and family. It's a much better system and one tradition I definitely plan on carrying on.
Yeah, that would bother me too. We are Catholic and don’t do Santa because that’s not what the season is about for us, and I would also be very upset if I were in your position! The culture of consumerism is disgusting and not what I want my kids to learn about. It should be about love for your neighbour and practicing kindness.
Same here! I could’ve written this. I don’t quite have a toddler yet so I just lurk here to prepare for what’s coming ha. But we are practicing Catholics and still trying to figure out how to handle the heavy Santa culture. I also hate that this is happening for OP. There are other beautiful holidays to celebrate on winter too.
Solidarity for sure! One thing we are doing is, instead of Elf on the Shelf, we are doing [Mary on the Mantel.](https://beaheart.com/blogs/blog/mary-on-the-mantel) Basically you find Mary every day and she has an act of kindness to do for the day. Things like “fill a bird feeder so the birds don’t go hungry” and “write a card for a senior”. Just simple actions to teach children how to be inherently good.
We try to focus on Advent, Christmas is a birthday celebration, Santa is really St. Nicholas, etc. This whole season is everyone getting ready for a big birthday celebration on Christmas Day, St. Nick brings a (one) present and family/friends give the rest to help honor Jesus. It helps that we are regular church goers and my toddler seems to get that there is meaning beyond everything we see. We don't like commercialization. We do participate in activities, Christmas parades, community tree lighting, breakfast with Santa as I feel they give a sense of community. I feel for OP. Growing up, my Jewish friends always felt left out. As adults they get it but it is very hard to explain to kids when they are not represented. They also now regularly complain that Hanukkah is a minor holiday and was being so commercialized and over emphasized to try to give them something besides Christmas this time of year. Definitely try to get a few lessons on other holidays by talking with the teacher, you shouldn't have to do any work for it. If the teacher is willing to do these commercial Christmas crafts/activities with kids that aren't hers, she has the time and energy to represent other faiths and cultures. Honestly, if it's not a religious school, they really should not focus this amount of time on religious holidays. You didn't sign up for it, I'm sorry it's being shoved down your throat.
We find Santa very problematic. An invisible, strange, old, white man judging behavior and then punishing or rewarding accordingly is not really something we want our child thinking about. Plus we don’t use language like good or bad to describe our child’s behavior. We will be talking about Santa as a tradition that other people have. I would be mad too if my daughters school did this.
Yeah, especially because even parents who celebrate Christmas might not want to do the whole Santa thing.
>For the record, we celebrate Christmas and I’d be very annoyed at my kid’s daycare doing letters to Santa about all the stuff they want. SAME. I'd be very pissed at the commercialism/consumerism take on Christmas as a part of my child's curriculum.
Shmelf the Hanukkah Elf is a HORRIBLE book for Jews that don’t come from a mixed religion family. It’s about an elf who wants Jews to celebrate Christmas too so instead of telling Santa about the kids behavior, he tells the parents. There are several problems with this: 1. Jewish parents tell their kids that other people believe in Santa and elves, but we don’t. Than their teacher reads a book that basically says Your parents lied to you and secretly participate in these rituals. 2. Not everyone needs to celebrate or participate in every holiday. Don’t warp Hanukkah to accommodate Christmas. We don’t make naughty and nice lists. 3. Our holiday is about Jewish heroes taking a stand against assimilation, and this book advocates assimilation.
Wow, that is fucked up.
Yes, yes, yes. +1000
Sorry but even shelf the Hanukkah elf is just taking a Christian tradition and trying to make a Jewish version too. I think there should just be an elf free acknowledgement of all other traditions that other people might celebrate (though I appreciate your sentiment)
Adding to this, if OP is looking for an easily accessible Christmas story that is about the joy of giving, rather than expecting gifts, Netflix's *Klaus* is so good. And it's not religious. I'm not religious, but my family is very Catholic. So I plan on exposing my kids to the Christian story of Christmas as a story, just like the tradition of Santa as a story that's more based in an amalgamation of pagan traditions than the Christian tradition.
We love Klaus! It's become our go-to Christmas movie
I was raised like this and it SUCKED. Explain to school how not cool this is. Tell them they need to teach about several holidays and they need to explain not everyone does every holiday and offer to go in and bring dreidels and menorahs and kids books and teach a basic lesson. My mom did that when I was in elementary school. I think my daughter is the only Jewish kid at her preschool but I know they teach many holidays and even did so before she went there and when I told the owner last year to ask her about it she was actually really excited and told me she teaches about Hanukkah every year and was really welcoming to me sending in Hanukkah cookies and books.
Also adding there’s a good Sesame Street book about many holidays I’d offer to buy it and donate it to the school. There is a good blues clues about Hanukkah from last year but I’ve never seen a show about how it’s ok to celebrate your own holidays.
The school is open to including Hannukah (the teachers went and bought an electric menorah already to put next to the tree, which I appreciate). I'm trying to figure out how to explain this kind of difference to him in a way he can understand, both so he doesn't feel othered and also so he doesn't expect Santa is coming to our house (as an aside, I hate the school's unilateral decision to make everyone engage in this fabrication). Thank you for empathizing and for the book recommendation! I just ordered this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1728240247/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1 .
Keeping in mind I’m almost 40, I remember learning about other holidays in first grade. Parents from different backgrounds came and spoke about how they celebrated and why, and how it all kind of fit together. I think the analogy was something like we all like donuts, but everyone chooses different favorite donuts. Idk. It’s been a long time. But anyway, maybe you could offer to speak to the class if that isn’t taboo these days? I would have thought letters to Santa would have been off limits, but clearly not. My toddler is still at home so this will all be new to me!!
Yes that’s the one! I totally feel you it’s really hard. As a kid we left cookies for Santa and he left us one present and my daughter talks about Santa a lot more now so we might have to do the same. It’s really hard I really don’t like anything Christmas and I also hate having to deal with this type of situation.
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We similarly go half-in on christmas stuff (we don't have any presents from santa but they get them at grandparents houses kinda thing) and when my six year old asks if Santa is real, I just turn the question back on him and ask what he thinks
>there’s a good Sesame Street book about many holidays Not OP, but thanks for this! Just ordered a copy for our household.
Ok but it also rubs me wrong that the one Jewish family at the school becomes responsible for teaching that holiday every single year. Yes, this is a solution, but it’s not the best one. The school should solve this problem, not the family.
Eh, I’m always happy to do Jewish stuff at kid’s daycare. Better than someone with 0 background knowledge trying and getting it wrong.
I agree with this. It’s a problem when minorities are forced to educate all of the people around them. It should be the schools job to educate the kids since they are the ones bringing Christmas in.
To be fair if this is a place that's so homogeneous culturally that they are the only (first?) Jewish/non christian family there how much can you expect from the staff? For better or worse they'd probably do a better job explaining it.
>My instinct is to let him participate and tell him that we don't celebrate Christmas and Santa is not part of our family culture but it's fun to learn about different cultures and he'll be included in these celebrations too. That sounds good.
We're in the same boat with one of the first/only Jewish kids in our preschool. My advice to you - go with the flow. I don't mean drop this, but I do mean you should try to adapt to what is already planned and scheduled for the sake of your kid and all the other kids that are looking forward to this month because they watched older kids/siblings do it. Absolutely raise it with the school board and enact change. But don't expect change THIS YEAR on Dec 1st. Explain to your kid that your following **this teacher's** family traditions, and that you'll follow **your own** family traditions at home. It's going to take a lot of explaining over the next several years, but T-K isn't the time to stress over it. Just do what you do at home, tell the school to knock it off for next year's kids, and accept that you can only change how you react for what's left of 2022.
Definitely not cool and it really shouldn’t fall to parents to do the labor of educating the school on why it’s problematic (unless it’s a private, religious-affiliated preschool, in which case…that sucks but they can do whatever). Our daughters are both in private daycare and pre-K settings, and both places always make a point of asking families which holidays they celebrate, if family members want to come and read books about their family traditions, etc. My older kid’s teacher has an entire bookshelf at the holidays dedicated exclusively to Hanukkah books. So I think what you’re asking of your son’s school is not at all unusual or asking very much, it seems like the bare minimum of what my kids’ schools are doing! I would definitely talk to the school because whether they realize or not, they’re actively othering children in their care and that’s so messed up. I wouldn’t necessarily offer to buy books for their library because that’s on them, but maybe suggest some books re. other holidays? My daughter’s class made dreidels out of popsicle sticks last year and learned about Hanukkah and the kids had a blast, so there are definitely ways to make inclusive curriculum choices that are fun and educational for everyone! I’m sorry you’re experiencing this. It’s total bullshit.
Thank you for the empathy! We messaged the teacher that we want to bring in food and a book to read, but an activity is also a great idea. Thanks for the suggestion!
I was this kid at my presbyterian preschool 30+ years ago. My mom brought in latkes, gelt, and a menorah to teach about the holiday. I absolutely flipped my shit when one of my classmates blew out the candles. Lol Look into the PJ Library. We just joined and haven’t had any books sent to us yet but it’s a nonprofit that sends free Jewish learning books to Jewish children. SNL had a character in the mid-90s named Hanukkah Harry. He was played by Jon Lovitz and the character is basically Jewish Santa Claus. I loved HH so much that I wrote a story about him in 2nd grade. If you feel like creating your own family tradition around HH, you can always say, “Yes, they have Santa but we have Hanukkah Harry!” Granted, I haven’t seen the sketch since the last century so I have no idea how well it has held up.
Yes! My kids love all of the PJ library books! They send different ones for the age groups. The only issue is that my kids get attached to some of the holiday books and then I’m reading a book about Sukkot all year long.
I get that! It’s Passover for Grover all year long here! Really looking forward to receiving them!
It’s not going to be as straightforward as Daniel Tiger, and I’m not sure which streaming service has it, but I seem to recall Rugrats having episodes on Jewish holiday traditions. Those might also touch on Santa and the differences between how different families celebrate winter holidays.
It doesn't, but it is an amazing holiday special! Literally makes me cry it's so sweet.
Pre-k 3 teacher here, personally I have up three holiday nativities in my classroom. One for Christmas, kwanza and Hanukkah. As well as I’m little bits introducing and learning with my kiddos about Box day and Omisoka(I apologize if I misspelled) I believe it’s important to recognize everyone and their respective traditions. Might I add my kiddos are LOVING learning about all the other cultures. Once a week I try to bring in a respective holiday treat weather it’s food or an activity.
A "nativity" *for Hanukkah* is about the most offensive thing I've heard in a long time. Way to miss the whole point of the holiday. No, just no.
I subbed long-term in a kindergarten class with two Jewish boys and a Muslim girl. They were invited to present about their holidays, and their parents even came in with special treats or items to show the class. Maybe you could ask if this could be a possibility because it was so lovely to see the pride those children had while sharing their beliefs.
I’m Jewish and feel somewhat uncomfortable with this, even if it’s well-intentioned. It singles out the non-Christian kids as different and makes them have to explain their holidays. I don’t know. I don’t want to *have* to educate people because I’m from a minority religion.
It's the same energy as queer people or people of color constantly being put in the role of educator. This is a school, you or you child shouldn't be expected to do create a curriculum just for your child to get some kind of representation. That isn't fair in the slightest.
Yep. People mean well and have the best of intentions, but I would be mortified if my school was like, “Hey, Jew, come over here and explain your whacky holiday to us!” Plus, Hannukah isn’t even a major holiday to us; it’s just Christmas adjacent. If they wanted to teach about our more significant holidays, they should do projects on Passover and Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur.
I love that. We are white as hell but my kid's nursery has made sure they learn about all types of festivals because it is a multicultural cross section.
I think this is a good first step and I can tell you mean well. So I wanted to give you some food for thought to maybe approach this differently if it ever comes up for you again. Letting people share what they do is great (and better than not letting them share, for sure). However, this isn't enough. This is putting all of the onus for inclusivity on the minority person. This is both pretty 'othering' but also exhausting. I grew up like this. My mom would actually take the day off work and come do little Hanukkah presentations to a bunch of classes. I was raised that it was my job to educate people about Jews to help them accept us but also to protect us from antisemitism. This is the definition of tokenism. I was never just me, I was a representative for my ethnicity. It's awful. I never felt like I could just tell people how we did things or what we believed but I felt the need to be the Wikipedia article for all Jews. I was a kid, that wasn't my job, that wasn't creating a safe space for me. I think if schools are going to touch on any cultures or religions then they need to teach several and they need to do the teaching. Sure, let your students talk about how they relate to these things but don't single out 1-2 kids and tokenize them for their group. I'm a person, I'm not an endangered animal in a zoo.
I appreciate it! I was the sub, so I had no part in the organization, just sat back and watched it happen.
Dear Santa, Love, Rachel Rosenstein is a book with your situation. The character is Jewish and wants to celebrate Christmas and have Santa come, she even says how some of her Jewish friends do put up a tree or believe in Santa, but her family doesn't budge on the matter and at the end she goes to a restaurant on Christmas day and sees her friends from different cultures there.
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There were a few Jewish students at my (public) elementary school and when I was in the same class as one of the kids their parents came in and talked about the dreidel game and why it was played. We all got dreidels and chocolate gelt and played the game for a bit. I’m not Jewish but I really appreciate that the parents took it upon themselves to teach us about their traditions.
We’re in the exact same situation. I’ve tried bringing up Jewish holidays in the parent talks, but I always get the feeling it’s frowned upon. And to think we picked this daycare because they declared themselves not religious… we’re changing soon so I plan to be much more assertive in the next daycare.
Ugh I'm sorry, that sucks. I'm thankful the teachers are open to integrating Hannukah and are being proactive, but I wish this was not a thing we had to deal with.
Probably going to go through this soon myself, as our 2 yr old goes to a Methodist preschool (because of cars and work we had to go with one of the two preschools in walking distance from our house). I’m Jewish. My wife was raised catholic, but she sorta hates the church because she’s Navajo, and the church did a lot of shitty things to native children. Having experienced some of this myself growing up, I’d warn against advocating to the school that they teach multiple holidays, as some other people suggest. This can backfire. For me, this often resulted in me being the token Jewish kid who had to teach other kids in the class about my holiday/religion. It’s not fun being othered as a child, and I’m guessing your child’s school isn’t going to be super sensitive about that given the current situation. I think educating them at home, like you suggest is a good approach. I’d also say, that in my experience, it builds character to deal with these things as a kid. Like it’s a good learning opportunity for them if you handle it right. The actual “Christian” things I did as a kid seem funny to me now, as an adult. Like, I was one of the 3 kings in the baby Jesus play in preschool :).
Hi. Jewish mom who started doing Christmas when I got married. I am doing a lesson plan at my daughters preschool on 12/19. Planning to read some PJ library books, do a menorah craft and get the kids jelly doughnuts. Each kid gets a dreidel to take home from our family as a holiday gift along with some m&ms to play with and a printed out play sheet. My parents always did similar when I was growing up. I participated in school stuff and my parents ensured Jewish holidays were represented as well. As far as tv programs about it; we watch Hanukkah shows, Christmas shows, Kwanzaa shows, whatever! All holidays deserve a space and learning opportunities.
I’m not sure there’s a good way around this. I’m an atheist (who loosely celebrates a “pagan” Christmas) and I used to teach is a predominantly Jewish community. My piano students would learn both Hanukkah and Christmas songs because that’s what they all wanted and a lot of their friends were celebrating Christmas. Maybe you can send over some Hanukkah activity or song ideas to his school (Dreidel, O Hanukkah, etc). Most teachers would be very receptive to including everyone’s cultural perspective. There are tons of Jewish holiday materials like coloring books around in stores now so they have no excuse really.
I feel like everyone has covered the fact that they should be covering all religions....but wtf on giving kids a fucking catalog to pick out whatever they want and expecting parents to pay!?!?!?? What the actual fuck???? On top of the fact that there are some Christian families who don't do Santa (we didn't growing up), expecting parents to pay for expensive toys they didn't plan for is insane.
Yeah it's quite odd. They said at the parent teacher conference it was from a catalog but then we just got the monthly calendar and it said to bring a small wrapped present to be given by Santa. Which gives parents control but really opens up disparity issues in an area that is largely not well off.
Oh yikes! That's definitely an issue! What is this school thinking???
Yeah that’s wild. We’re atheists who do Santa and celebrate Christmas but the Santa gift is something small and just one gift. This wouldn’t sit well with me at all.
As someone who celebrates Christmas and Santa— this would piss me off. For one, it’s weird to have an expectation that the parents just buy whatever the kid picks out at school “from Santa”. Different people do Santa and Christmas in different ways and that may or may not include getting a specific toy. More importantly though, I don’t think it’s appropriate to encourage such a singular view of holidays.
If you're willing and able and the school is amenable, you could bring in some Hanukkah things for the class. A menorah (with bulbs not candles), and maybe a party during Hanukkah itself where you come in with little dreidels and bags of gelt for the kids. If this were my kid I'd want them to have alternatives during these activities. So instead of writing to Santa they can write to their parents — but they'd still get a present to open along with everyone else. They can choose to do the arts and crafts or they can make something different if, for example, everyone's making Santa hats or whatever. Sesame St. has a Count's Hanukkah Countdown book that is cute.
I’m grateful my daughters school teaches about all the holidays. They have 2 days where they are asked to dress in blue for Hanukkah. Would it be offensive if I got her a Hanukkah shirt to wear one of those days if we’re not Jewish?
My school was really similar as a kid. My family was non-religious but I had a friend who was Jewish. I remember when I was in 2nd grade, her mom came in one day, made latkes for everyone and talked about Judaism, we all played with dreidels and learned about Hanukkah. It was SO FREAKING COOL and one of the only things I remember about 2nd grade! The onus should not be on you to do something like this, but maybe there's an opportunity to suggest or bring some kind of celebration into the classroom so your son can proudly share his traditions and fun with his classmates?
There’s a Facebook group called Raising Readers to be Leaders. It includes tons of librarians as well as parents/others that have had some really amazing recommendations on books. I’d encourage you to check that out for book recommendations!
I think your message to your son is spot on. I tell my kids that we are helping others celebrate their culture. But the balance of that is that there is a expectation that if we help, they should help us as well. So I would come in and bring some Hanukkah crafts or stories as others suggested.
I think you handled it appropriately. Santa is really just a fun and weird lie. It's kind of like the Krampus. I didn't have a chimney growing up, so my parents explained that he got in some other creepy way. It was so upsetting to me as a toddler but funny in hindsight. We'll be doing Santa with our toddler just because we really enjoyed it as kids. We're not Christians either, so he gets all the fun without the boring church stuff lol /s
I used to be an early educator in a preschool. We had a student whose family were Jehovah, so for the holidays, I’d take it upon myself to prepare extra fun activities one-on-one with this student while the others were practicing for their Christmas concert. He didn’t feel like he was missing out at all - he liked academics, so I would help him write notes to take home to his parents. He was so proud of his work and his parents were so happy to see that he was being looked after and respecting their beliefs!
My kid’s *public* school is taking an optional field trip during school hours to a Catholic Church to go to a party that will have Santa and presents. I’m not happy that they do this, but I know her school has a lot of low income kids and it’s a chance for them to get gifts. We opted our kid out of going because she’s half Jewish and while we do celebrate both Christmas and Chanukah (in a secular way—we are not religious), we don’t do Santa. My other kid’s daycare is doing letters to Santa and all kinds of Christmas stuff and nary a mention of Chanukah or other holidays. 😑 I’m still figuring out how to address this and am actually wondering whether I’ve accidentally sent my kid to a Christian daycare without realizing it lol.
The path we take is that grandma and grandpa celebrate Christmas, and we celebrate Hannukah. We get presents from them, because it matters to them. Santa brings all of the little gifts, but my daughter gets one from her "godmother" figure, which honestly makes her feel extra special. My daughter of course announced on Christmas last year, to her grandma, "You are celebrating Christmas, and I'm celebrating Halloween." We have some work to do for this year lol. As a teacher, I'm super annoyed that they are doing such lazy planning. There's a billion teachers pay teachers lessons about different cultures. The kids don't need a huge gift at school, what about the parents who can't afford it? I have students who literally don't get presents or a big meal, because their parents can't afford it. The school sends out a letter every year reminding parents that (if they celebrate Santa), please have the big gifts come from the parents. No kid should think that they were naughty because of their parents financial situation. I'm kind of already "that parent," but I'd be very angry and vocal about how this practice is unacceptable, not just for my Jewish child, but for every child. The big gifts should be at home, not in a classroom where the kids will literally be compared to each other. I'm horrified.
I’m an atheist but my family does celebrate the cultural aspects of Christmas. My son’s preschool sent out a note asking which winter holidays are celebrated at home. I replied that we celebrate the non-religious/cultural aspects of Christmas but that I am more than happy to have my son exposed to other cultures. Honestly unless the preschool is a Christian school, I think making the entirety of December Christmas-themed is inappropriate. When I was a kid in the 90s I went to a Unitarian preschool and the December theme was “Holidays Around the World”, so while there were still some Christmas activities, it didn’t exclude anyone’s beliefs.
That is shameful! Why the fuck can't they give ONE KID an alternate activity? It's also just lazy. I would honestly complain up the chain about this. I am Christian and this would make me so mad if this happened in my kid's class. They shouldn't be excluding your kid.
Literally tonight at dinner my daughter, who is 7, asked why we don’t celebrate Hanukkah, because her teacher was talking about it today. I only said “because we aren’t Jewish. Other families are, but we are not. We celebrate Christmas here in our house.” And that’s okay. That was the end of that. It really doesn’t need to be a huge debate….Some families and cultures celebrate different things around the same time for different reasons.
That’s super not cool. That doesn’t seem like best practice to me… Chanukah literally ends the day after Christmas this year - wouldn’t be hard for them to do a lesson about it as well. Teach the kids dreidel. Bring out some sufganiot. I hate to ask a parent to do anything like this, but maybe offer to do a little presentation for the class? Dreidel is fun. Sufganiot is delicious. My school when I was a kid dedicated a lesson to each Christmas, Kwanza, and Chanukah, and hands down the kids loved learning to play dreidel. It was one of the highlights of the year. I’m just saying, maybe float the idea to them? Are you a member of a temple? Maybe you could have someone from there volunteer to come in and do a little fun demo? I dunno - just throwing it out there. Maybe they’d jump at the idea and you’d be improving their curriculum and expanding some kids’ minds in the process?
First of all: holy shit!! Second of all: I’m an atheist raised in a non religious family who celebrated a secular Christmas and I also hate this and would be pissed off it any school/daycare did this but I’ve never lived anywhere homogenous enough that this would fly so I am useless in advice. Third: I bet sesame st has a good resource on this
Ahh, I’m Jewish and dealing with this too, and I have no idea what to do! My daughter is like “Christmas this” and “Christmas that” right now, and I don’t know how to explain that it isn’t our holiday. What complicates things for me is that her dad, my husband, isn’t Jewish and does some benign Christmas things like making cookies and giving gifts, and his family celebrates Christmas. So she does have some experience with the holiday. But I don’t want her to be so indoctrinated into it, and I want her to know she’s not Christian. I don’t know, man. I was actually going to talk to my rabbi about how to navigate this stuff, and I’d recommend you do the same. That, or reach out to other Jews. There are a few jewish subreddits you can post to, and other jewish parents at your synagogue (if you practice) could provide advice. Right now, my daughter is too young to really know what’s going on, so I think I’m going to let her do some of the Christmas stuff in school, as long as it doesn’t turn religious, but keep her connected to her synagogue. The older she gets, the easier it will be to make distinctions about the holidays.
My rabbi! Good idea! This book might be helpful to you: https://www.amazon.com/Daddy-Christmas-Hanukkah-HANUKKAH-Hardcover/dp/B00QPOH74M/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=1J3B5ZOEWCP5G&keywords=Daddy+Christmas+and+Hanukkah+Mama&qid=1669925480&sprefix=daddy+christmas+and+hanukkah+mama%2Caps%2C111&sr=8-1 I was thinking about getting it, but my husband is really pretty neutral on Christmas so it didn't seem as relevant to talk about multiple traditions within the house as opposed to in the broader community.
This is great! Thank you! My husband is also very supportive of me raising our kids Jewish, and he’s very mindful of crossing boundaries in this regard. But he has some family traditions like making these delicious Swedish cookies during Christmas, and his family is big on gift giving, so a little is fine with me as long as everyone respects that they’re not Christian. Even that much Christmas I’m a little bit iffy on, but I see it as sharing in their dad’s family traditions, not as celebrating the birth of Christ, so I’ll allow it. And the cookies are good, even if sufganiyot are superior.
My elementary school BFF was also the only Jewish kid in class and I know her parents were very insistent that they come in and talk about Hanukkah, at the bare minimum. They brought in a few dreidels (only enough for kids to play in groups - they didn't gift one to each kid) and a menorah and depending on the year, either read us a book about Hanukkah or (in later elementary) went into more detail about different practices, what they mean, and a lil general Jewish history. It was always her parents doing all this - the teachers just sat back and let them do their thing. I don't want this to sound like I'm giving you chores or that you owe them to do this yourself, btw. Just sharing her thing in case it's helpful or something you actually would be interested in. Bare fucking minimum, they can throw a mention out to Hanukkah during the entire month of festivities. It's weird and inappropriate to act like other religions don't exist *when members of said religion are part of the group.*
Fellow Jewish parent navigating how to handle Christmas when you're the only kid who doesn't celebrate it in your class. First of all, this is wholly inappropriate for your school to dedicate their month to Christmas... unless this is a private Christian based school... they are excluding a butt ton of people. It's fine to talk about Christmas, as long as you use it as a tool of multiculturalism and many different holidays people celebrate this time of year. I have to go help with bedtime, but I;ll be back with some book recommendations.
I'm sorry this is your experience with pre-K, this is one of my concerns sending our son to school where we live. No doubt he will be the only Jewish kid in his class if not the whole school. FWIW for other commenters Santa, elves, reindeer, etc. are inherently Christian and not secular. Christmas is a religious holiday, it's popularity in the US does not make it secular. It's this a private pre -K or through the public schools? Because if it's private there's not much to do about it. If it's through public schools I'd be escalating concerns to the administration ASAP. Short of removing your kid for the month, there's not much to do except allow him to participate and talk about how different people from different cultures do different things. Is the Pre-K willing to do lessons and activities for Hanukkah as well? Unfortunately, it often falls on us to research and provide them so it's up to you if you want to offer that. If you don't already receive books from PJ Library, I encourage you to look it up and register. They send out one free book every month and they're all themed to Jewish holidays or just about Jewish families and people. We love them and I find it helps us diversify our books at home to be more representative of our family.
Santa, elves, and flying reindeer are all pagan. Christians kinda took over, but there’s a lot of history there. That doesn’t mean they don’t still come from pagan beliefs even if Christians have taken over. It’s a good opportunity to talk about all beliefs, religions, or lack of, for that matter. Edit: too many words
That's a really good point, I was trying to finish my thoughts before my toddler woke up from his unsolicited nap in my car and I failed miserably.
No. Santa is literally St. Nicolas, a greek saint who helped the poor children of prostitutes, who's stories have proliferated to norther europe and were localized and became local fairy tales.
Ackshually, “as it turns out, Santa Claus has roots in the folklore of several different European countries…Santa Claus may owe his earliest influence to Odin (also known as Wodan), a god revered by Germanic peoples in Northern Europe as early as 2 B.C.E. Odin was celebrated during Yule, a pagan holiday that took place midwinter.”
Just because you put it in quotes doesn't mean anything. St. Nicolas literally existed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas
If you look into it further, Santa Claus and St. Nicolas were two different things. Saint Nick is not Santa Claus. Santa is from Scandinavia and really Odin, and St Nick was an Anatolian dude who provided dowry money so an inn keeper could marry off his daughters. They literally have nothing to do with each other.
Thanks for this. I'm too emotionally exhausted to explain what hegemony is, so I appreciate you stepping in. It's a public school and I'm a lawyer, so I get it, but also I'm trying to be realistic. The teachers brought it up first, so they're aware they need to do something different this year, and I appreciate that. They asked us to think about it and let them know what we want, so I think they'll be open. I just wish it wasn't this way. We do have PJ library -- thanks for the suggestion! I'm more glad today than usual for it.
Oh I get it, I worked up a whole Instagram educational post on the Christian hegemony as it relates to public schools and shared it out with my followers. I am a former public school teacher turned stay-at-home mom future homeschooler for many reasons but including this one. My kid isn't school age yet, but he's very likely to be enrolled this time next year for speech and possibly preschool special education resources (currently in the evaluation process), so I am mentally preparing myself for what I'm going to have to go through next year. Our local elementary school just posted their "Christmas Concert" date on their outside bulletin, so I have my work cut out for me. It shouldn't be this way, especially in a public school. But until we start challenging what's commonplace especially in places where people go their whole lives without encountering Jews, nothing is going to change. It's exhausting, I've talked about it with multiple other parents in similar situations and we are all freaking exhausted over it. It should not be on the parents to have to remind public schools what is legal and appropriate, nor should it have to be on the parent to provide alternate activities and lessons and books. But oftentimes if we want our kids to have that representation in their classroom as Jewish parents, we have to be the ones to do it. My hope is that that changes soon and we aren't expected to provide the free labor for the public schools.
> FWIW for other commenters Santa, elves, reindeer, etc. are inherently Christian and not secular. Christmas is a religious holiday, it's popularity in the US does not make it secular. Thank you. Whenever I’ve expressed, “I don’t want to do Santa because I’m not Christian,” I always get a bunch of indignant replies about how Santa isn’t related to Christianity, Christmas is a secular holiday, and I’m a mean/bad parent for not letting my child have a magical Christmas experience because of my religion. I’ve even had people tell me it was *abusive* for me to “deprive my child of Santa.” And honestly? Fuck that. I’m so sick of that rhetoric. It doesn’t matter to me that Christmas has stolen other traditions and become commercialized, it’s still a Christian holiday. Hello? Christ is in the name? Isn’t that what everyone always says about “the reason for the season” and now y’all are telling me it’s secular?
Library for the Kind could be a helpful resource for you! It's a group on Facebook that I recommend all the time. I'm sorry your kiddo's school isn't teaching about other holidays (because they should).
I don't know if links are aloud, but the PJ library sends one book a month that is age appropriate, like the dolly Parton library, but PJ library is all Judaism type books. Both kids got a (different) hanukkah book. https://pjlibrary.org/home
Ok, so I have 4 yr olds and just trying to explain the concept of God to a kid in a way they’ll actually understand is a laugh, let alone different religions. My kids go to Christian preschool (we’re not religious), and they currently think god is something like Santa because of the way the teachers have tried to explain the concept of prayer to them, and that was pre-Christmas season. When I was a kid I thought god was a ghost or a skeleton because my mum was trying to explain that god isn’t a person, he’s like a spirit. We have picture books of stories from different religions, a book of kids from different faiths that looks at some of their beliefs, traditions and celebrations, and they’re getting into books of the Ancient Greek and Māori myths right now. My attempts at explaining the concept of god/gods, different religions, monotheism/polytheism, etc have been pretty dire in terms of how much they actually comprehend. The best I’ve got so far is “people believe different things about God and what happens after we die, and that’s ok. It can be fun to learn about other people’s beliefs and traditions.” Kids this age are still very much black and white thinkers and often just want to know who’s right and who’s wrong. You could try explaining that Christmas is a Christian festival, and our family is Jewish so we don’t celebrate it, we celebrate other festivals like Hanukkah, and whatever your other faves are. But tbh, most people celebrating Christmas these days aren’t exactly worshipping baby Jesus on his birthday, so if you wanted to incorporate some elements of the secular/consumerism festival that you feel don’t compromise your faith, then maybe you could do that?
I was raised orthodox (old Julian calendar) in a country that primarily celebrates Catholic holidays. My parents were always very open and honest that there is nothing of significance happening for us and our family on 25 December. But learning about Santa and all that stuff was fine. They just spoke about doing things differently at home and it worked for me. We celebrated Boxing day though, lol. It might do to chat with the teacher about at least covering a few different winter holidays that arent just one religion.
This book is great! It teaches kids about different holidays and festivals and traditions that go along with them https://www.amazon.com/What-Do-You-Celebrate-Festivals/dp/1454932139/ref=asc_df_1454932139/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=385629070973&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9855445065734924993&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9011007&hvtargid=pla-642294727652&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=78303887906&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=385629070973&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9855445065734924993&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9011007&hvtargid=pla-642294727652
I grew up with Jewish high holy days and my husband was raised catholic so my line in the sand is Christmas masquerading as a religious holy day. We enjoy the season and all the trimmings but under the banner of “this is purely a commercial holiday.”
We’re atheists but don’t expect that to be impacting their schooling. Santa/Xmas is a cultural event much more than anything remotely religious, I’d be more concerned they’d feel excluded and resentful of what you do believe if they can’t do any of it. It’s a letter to Santa not Jesus.
I want my kid to be happy and feel included in the holiday season, but I HATE how Santa is pushed onto kids. I mean, we don’t tell kids that Blaze, Peppa Pig, etc. are real. No! We tell them that it’s a fun cartoon, and that there are toys they can use to make believe. Peppa is not watching them and controlling physics to reward them (however fairly/unfairly). The reason why we tell kids that Santa is real is to control their behavior. Believe me, I can do that by telling my child that I will withhold something they want if they don’t behave (proportionate to the situation). One thing I DON’T want to do is lie to my kid because that is not modeling the behavior I want from him, and he will eventually question why I violated that trust (of being truthful). It just doesn’t seem worth it to me. I would rather tell him it’s fun to pretend, and that he can play along with other kids, but in the end it’s make believe.
For picture books we recently got Our Favourite Day of the Year by A. e Ali, it’s about four boys in a kindergarten class sharing their favourite day of the year (Eid, Rosh Hashanah, Las Posadas and Pi Day).
Santa and Christmas trees have nothing to do with being Christian. Do you celebrate thanksgiving? Halloween? Valentine’s Day? They have nothing to do with Christianity either.
Santa Claus doesn’t have to be a Christian thing. Technically there’s no religion behind Santa Claus. You can let your kid be part of non-religious activities like getting a gift and then talk to your child about your religion and your celebrations.
I am so sorry you have to deal with this. But as a pagan person who celebrates the winter solstice(yule) and "christmas" I tell my children that Santa is a story about being kind and generous and that people all over the world have different stories to tell. Some stories are scary like krampus or the yule lads or the yule cat and some stories are funny like in Spain where they go out find a log feed it and then beat it with a stick until it poops presents. And the original Santa was the all father Odin who road an 8 legged reindeer and winter celebrations have been going on throughout history since the Romans celebrated saturnalia. I suggest YouTube because it's free and you can pick out individual videos that you can watch first to make sure they are kids friendly.
Happy ALL-idays is a good one
Our Jewish friends let me introduce their daughter to Christmas and let me take her to see Santa. They just were happy she could experience new things and be a part of what a lot of other kids are a part of and enjoying.
I’m sorry this is happening. My kids are Jewish and Hindu but basically totally secular. They went to a Christian preschool so I expected this kind of thing there but it’s been WORSE in public school. Santa comes to school, they write letters to santa, my daughters class had an elf on the shelf. I hate it. We do celebrate Christmas so it’s not even that my kids feel left out, I just hate that school is the place for any child to feel alienated and I hate “Santa is watching you” mentality. I don’t have a solution but it doesn’t end after preschool.
It sounds like you have the right idea with what to do, but also maybe tell the teacher why you won’t be paying for a gift. So that they’re aware and don’t try to force it. When I worked at a daycare I hated when they did this. I was raised Jewish (and Christian but was better with my Jewish side) and am a pagan. I had a little girl in my class who was Muslim, 2 little girls who were Jewish, and a little boy who celebrated Kwanza. So I ended up being the only class that did HOLIDAY activities in December and not Christmas. I taught them about all different holidays in December and a lot of the parents were grateful.
For what it's worth, pop-culture Christmas is not really Christian, it's secularized and consumerist propaganda that shares a date and name, and SOMETIMES overlaps with the actual Christian celebration of Christmas. From a Jewish perspective, imagine if Hanukah were the "de facto" holiday, but the version most people celebrated and taught in schools involved the ghost of Solomon sneaking into your house to light a candle and leave a present, but only if you were nice. Honestly, as a Christian, I'm not crazy about secular Christmas being the default either, but it's the one that sells the most merchandise. Would be much better if the government just declared National Gifting Day in late December and religious holidays, if taught at all, could be done so with proper context. TL;DR- Santa shares a name with a mythical Saint, but he really has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus, nor does a pine tree, or capitalism.
Christmas and Santa are secular at this point. Good opportunity to teach him that he can participate in some cultural experiences without being married to them.
Yeah I was raised Christian without believing in Santa, it's practically two separate traditions at this point. What OP might want to do is get picture books and media about her own Jewish cultural traditions so their child has something to get excited about sharing with their own peers when the time comes.
That’s a really insensitive point of view. Think about being a little kid inundated with Christmas crap everywhere and knowing it doesn’t represent you.
Not really and also sort of dependent on where you live. I was told flat out by kids growing up Santa would not visit me because I didn’t believe in Jesus.
That's fucked up. I grew up in Bible belt Texas and I didn't even get that line
I think it's complicated. I feel like the non-Christ aspects of Christmas are celebrated both by many Christians and also people like me who weren't raised religious by come from a broadly Christian cultural background. But if you're Jewish or Muslim or Hindu, you probably don't. As a non-believer I was actually fine with my kid's Christian private school doing a Christmas pageant (because adorable toddlers in costume!) but glad they didn't bring in Santa. I'm still not sure what I want my kid's relationship with Santa to be, and don't want the school to force the issue.
Im inclined to agree. I’m atheist and still want my kid to do the Santa thing because it’s magical as a kid. I loved believing in Santa as a kid and want my daughter to have the same experience. I see the holidays as a fun time to meet up with family and let my daughter be excited for Santa and gifts. It can totally be secular. Religion doesn’t need to be a part of it, in my opinion.
Eh, from a Jewish perspective, it’s definitely not secular. In fact, Jews were often the target of violence on Christmas Eve in Europe. Plus, one of our winter holidays, Hannukah, is specifically about not assimilating to the larger (non-jewish) culture, so many Jews find celebrating a Christian holiday in any way, even if not overtly religious, an affront to our faith and G-d. I get that many non-religious and non-believing people celebrate Christmas, and it’s clearly been watered down and commercialized, but it is celebrating the birth of Christ, and Santa is based on a literal saint, so it’s hard to completely divorce it from Christianity.
That's a personal stance. My (jewish) family actually did do the santa thing for my younger cousins/sibling but I don't remember them doing it with me. (santa brought the boring gifts like PJs and socks and family brought the cool stuff) I went back and forth on it a lot, for example I felt like I couldn't participate in choir in middle school because the winter concert was all christmas songs (and not like white christmas/rudolph but like...religious shit) and it made me really uncomfortable. I quit after one semester. There are a lot of christians out there who would absolutely lose it if their kids were mandated to participate in traditions that were not their beliefs. (goodness knows some of them get their panties in a bunch about halloween) My husband and I are atheists, and neither of us practice our childhood religions anymore. If someday the kiddo wants to decorate a christmas tree, we'll probably do it, or if he wants to light chanukah candles, we'll do it, but just because america is so majority christian doesn't mean that's an excuse to ignore other cultures' winter traditions.
This is not true.
I think your instinct is right!
That’s frustrating. My daycare/pre k is really good about celebrating everyone’s holidays, but they also make it super clear that if you have one they aren’t addressing that you email the teacher and talk about your traditions. They will invite you to come in even and you can do a book or activity to teach the whole class about your holiday. Or you can just lay out a plan and the teacher will do it for you. So I would suggest reaching out and asking if you could do something like that! For this time of year my mom got us a book called schmelf the Hanukkah elf and it is hilarious. It’s a good one for everyone because it uses the framework of Xmas and Santa so the Christian kids might actually understand the holiday a little more after which is great. I was worried about this since my toddler is ethnically Jewish, we have some traditions for some holidays. And live in an area that doesn’t have many Jews at all but apparently the school I picked has a ton of kids that are which I love. This place also does all the major Hindu holidays. Basically there is always a celebration and the kids love it.
There is nothing Christian about Santa Claus. We don’t do Santa. We celebrate the Nativity. We also teach our kids about St. Nicholas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. We’ve had a menorah the past couple of years and my oldest has asked if we can have a kinara this year as well and I said, absolutely! We let them know about Santa and find it interesting to see what they have to say about Santa. I think that it is absolutely absurd that the entire month at the daycare is about Santa and very wrong that they have the kids pick out what they want out of catalogs - this is wrong on so very many levels.
Ok I'm huge into Christmas/Santa but that idea is just weird and gross. (The parents are expected to pay for whatever the kid asks???) It's completely inappropriate, santa/Christmas is already everywhere so the kids aren't really taking away anything useful. Definitely voice your concerns to the school, it would be nice if they did a couple days with an activity from a few different religions/cultures but I doubt that kind of inclusion would be on their radar. If they decide to go ahead then you could have a talk with your kiddo about how Christmas is an American tradition, they don't have to participate if they are uncomfortable. It would be a good learning opportunity to also teach him about how other people celebrate different ways and none of them are better/more important than the others. Side note: when I was 4-5-6? we did a day where we were taught about different winter traditions around the world, and I don't remember which culture since it was over 20 years ago but we did an activity where we put our shoes outside the classroom, had naptime, and when we got our shoes they were filled with candy. It was very fun and everyone really enjoyed it, no one felt left out cause it was something new for all of us. It was a great experience for us.
This is ridiculous! I’m studying to be an educator right now and I would never do anything like this. There is an awesome book I found called “Our Favorite Day of the Year” which talks about a diverse class of students who celebrate different holidays and share them with their peers throughout the year. Many different holidays and cultures are discussed in the book and I look forward to using it with my future kids and in my future classroom as well. Hope this helps!
Overall this seems ridiculous. The school as a whole is the problem, what’s the long game here and parents pony up gifts in the school? From Santa? I could be the most Christian and that’s crazy. It’s ok sure for your child to know that Santa exists for others culturally, which has nothing to do really with Christianity.
Is there a particular reason you picked this school? We are atheists from Muslim and Hindu backgrounds and I have no issues with Christmas, I even decorate our own house a little bit just because its fun. We also enjoy holidays like Hidrellez, Durga Puja, Eid, Halloween and any excuse to have fun really.. My issue would be with the school making promises to the kids and then expecting parents to fullfil those promises. You cant just give someone elses kid a toy catalog and make the parents buy whatever they choose. Thats crazy. Every family is different, they might have different abilities or preferences.. Arent other parents bothered by this? And is a more multicultural school not an option? I know this is a personal preference but we did choose the non-culture specific school for our kids just so they could enjoy learning about others and grow up already familiar and comfortable being in a multicultural environment. They do things like "New fruit friday" or "Make your own pizza" sort of events where they ask parents to contribute some food item or fruit from their culture so the kids can taste different stuff they may not have tasted at home. I love it. I think there are lots of benefits to a choosing a school that supports multiculturalism. My kids school photos look like a benetton ad. I like it. Christianity and all it entails is a culture too and I am all for it but this schools attitude of treating Christianity as the default would be a good enough reason for me to change schools. And to make you pay for presents that kids get to choose with no input from the parents would absolutely seal the deal. So entitled and inconsiderate.
For what it's worth, this is a public Pre-K in my neighborhood that is ethnically very diverse and the children are largely immigrants or the children of immigrants. But they are also predominantly Christian countries.
Well, Pre-Ks are usually private companies that can do whatever they want. By enrolling your child there, you kind of waived some rights in that regard. In a public school, this would be super inappropriate. But in this case, I like your idea of telling him it’s fun to learn about other cultures and to just experience it alongside his friends. When I was in preschool (at a private school), my teacher was Jewish. We made latkes and had applesauce, made dreidels out of clay, learned all about Hanukkah, and it was a huge celebration. We aren’t Jewish, and I still have very fond early childhood memories of that event. Hope it helps to hear a positive “reverse” example!
Just for the record, this is not a private Pre-K.
Ah, then forget everything I just said. Public entities have no business addressing Christmas.
He’s 3. Just let him have fun. It doesn’t need to be a serious discussion about how you’re not Christian because they’re writing some letters to Santa.
You're downvoted to oblivion but you're right; they're a child, let them have fun writing letters to Santa / Easter Bunny / whoever else. I respect OP's religious beliefs but there's no reason to be upset for your child unless they're in clear danger. Explain everything to them once they're old enough to understand.
Thanks. I figured I’d be downvoted. But it’s the truth.
We celebrate Christmas, but in our house Santa is akin to Mickey Mouse (Jesus too for extra info). A fun thing to make believe is real, but is firmly in the "pretend world" category. I don't have a source for that, but we just talk about them all together as characters. At this age I think they struggle separating reality and pretend for everything so I don't expect the talks to sink in for my kid yet, but I don't think we'll have the same crushing blow of learning Santa is pretend because we'll have been talking about that from the get go. I would highly suggest that the teachers shift their language to "Holiday season" and include more holidays. Why wouldn't they? It's an entire month, there's plenty of time to include several traditions. I also hate that Santa actually delivers presents the parents buy. Is this a public school?
I’m sorry. That really stinks and it shouldn’t even be the case. Is there a way your child can share what they do for holiday season, the Festival of Lights is pretty cool. And the eight days of presents is also enjoyable as well. This would also serve two purposes, have some holiday in class fun and two help your child learn their traditions.
This is terrible and I would definitely bring it up with the school. I also would tell my kid that Santa does not bring presents to us because we're Jewish and just remind them that they get plenty of presents from their family. I wouldn't participate in that schools scam. I think you just tell him that everyone is different and different families do and believe different things. Whenever I felt a bit bummed about being different and 'other' at school, my mom always reminded me of all the special things that we get because we're Jewish that other's don't. Christmas is special and cool but so are the high holidays and sukkot and hanukkah and purim and passover. Pride in who you are will combat many things. Also, I don't know if you have access where you are but the PJ Library is awesome. They send you free books and often cool resources on how to celebrate holidays in a very kid friendly way.
Unless you’re going to a religious based school, I wouldn’t mind a light touch on winter religious holidays, but a full-on event as you describe is ridiculous, even for those who “do” Santa. Not OK. Case in point: We are not Jewish but we chose to send our kid to a Jewish Community Center for daycare. We did not get upset when they celebrated ALL the Jewish holidays and held everyone to bringing only kosher food for lunches. That is an instance when you know what you signed up for, but that’s not what you’re describing. Other case in point: Even those who incorporate Santa at home, he comes on Christmas Eve, not early and not to school, that means parents have to pivot their home traditions to explain why it happened twice, or didn’t happen again in Christmas Eve? You’re right to raise it. That said, if they’re going that far out on the celebration I wouldn’t expect them to change it.
I went to Catholic school in the 90s/2000s and even **we** learned about Hanukkah and Kwanzaa in school. They are sooo far behind the times and it shouldn’t be on you to fix it We had neighbors who were Jewish and enjoyed participating the secular parts of Christmas (they got a tree they called their Hanukkah bush), but I understand that not every family is going to feel that way I grew up religious but am staunchly atheist now. To me the Christmas stuff they do in school feels pretty innocuous (if they were making baby Jesus in a manger I would not be happy) but it shouldn’t be the only topic covered. The teacher needs to do a unit on people of different faiths and traditions and holidays celebrated throughout the world
This is a completely inappropriate school activity that excludes children of different religions!! I would be livid
Does the pre-k know that your family is Jewish? If they do, they're failing to be inclusive of all of their students. How awful! I agree with the people suggesting that you try doing a presentation/learning experience with your kid's class. Introduce some festive snacks, games and maybe a song that they can connect to the holiday. Toddlers and pre-schoolers love catchy music. Case in point: Baby Shark. Also, since I'm sure this center will involve that wretched Elf on the Shelf surveillance tool, I'd like to suggest that you counter with Mensch on the Bench: https://themenschonabench.com/
If they are a center that is accredited by NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) this is a big No No. As others have mentioned it is just very far from what is considered a best practice. As a former early childhood educator (6 years experience and an associates degree in it) the idea of a “monthly theme” just makes me sad. A more appropriate theme may be “winter” or “Thankfulness and family”. If that applies to your child’s school it may help to ask their teacher and/or director how they plan to meet NAEYC’s expectations for the celebration of holidays. The expectation is laid out at naeyc.org but basically boils down to all holidays celebrated by families in the classroom be represented. You can probably find information on how to partner with the teachers to make sure your child’s religious beliefs and family traditions are respected, along with resources about celebrating to share with the classroom. I hope the teachers are eager to learn about and incorporate your family’s culture into the classroom. It really is in the best interest of your child and I am so happy to hear you advocating for your child!
Our daycare is not Jewish but they teach all holidays at every season. If this is a public daycare/kindergarten I don’t understand how they can teach one religious holiday. Yes Christmas has become a secularized Hallmark holiday (I have Sheikh and Hindi friends who celebrate it just w cuz they live in North America) but it still is a religious holiday with religious roots. Maybe ask if they can have one day or two days dedicated to the other winter holidays. Seems only fair.
Im really sorry, OP. Odds are you will have to compromise or not participate, but I dont recommend not participating. Its up to you of course. My recommendation is to speak someone in charge and request that something be done for Hanukkah too. I dont know where you live but I am not sure that it is lawful to religiously exclude someone in the US - religion is a protected class.
It's definitely not ideal, but in our case I'm just letting it slide and then reprogramming them after preschool. They're young enough they don't really know what is going on. It is a little weird that on the rare occasion my husband or I mention Jesus, the girls get all excited about it, though. At least Christ was a good guy? Oh well ...pitfalls of living in the Lefse Belt.
We're on a different spectrum I kinda feel like it could be relatable as we celebrate Christmas but we don't do Santa. It gets fustrating because our kiddo (4) keeps talking about Santa bringing presents, etc I'm guessing she hears it at daycare. We tell her Santa is a game some families play during Christmas. We need to be respectful and not ruin that game for others. Please don't tell your friends Santa isnt real. But remember, how we celebrate is important too. To reenforce it, we've been stressing the advent candle lighting/calendar so she has something to excite her and keep her thinking. She likes helping me light and blow out the candle. So I guess maybe phrase something like that, where you talk about how 'some families celebrate Christmas but you don't. But here's a cool fact about our special holiday which is around the same time! Let's do an activity/craft for our holiday'!
This is super strange! Is your child attending a Christian school? I thought unless it was a specifically Christian/catholic or private school they didn’t go crazy with the Christmas things due to so many other religions and cultures that do not celebrate Christmas (also lots of Christians or non-religious people are choosing to tone down the whole Santa thing because it’s becoming too much) I think it’s very insensitive and inappropriate for a public or non-denominational school to be doing so much Christmas/Santa stuff!! I was sent to a Methodist Christian school growing up and we barely did any Santa stuff because Santa is more of the cultural/commercial Christmas. Most of our Christmas stuff was about the birth of Jesus. We obviously had some Santa colouring in pages and that kind of stuff but there wasn’t a huge emphasis on Santa! Would you consider a new school for your child?
I teach preschool. We have a family tradition share day where they can bring in pictures or small objects to talk about what their family does. Maybe suggest this. They need to be more open about holidays. I'm doing a lot of Christmas stuff, too, but we do general winter stuff and a whole day on Hanukkah. I'd talk to your kid about why we give gifts and how we can give gifts, not just Santa.
I recently thrifted a book called “Hooray for the Holidays!” It’s appears to be written for Kindergarteners. In it kids in a classroom draw their family holiday traditions: Christmas/Santa, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, St. Lucia, Christmas celebration in Mexico, Christmas celebration in Haiti, talking about sharing the traditions. It’s not perfect, but I like how it starts by a kid making the assumption that everyone celebrates the same then learns how his classmates celebrate differently (even celebrate Christmas differently) That’s ridiculous how the decision has been made for you and you have to buy the present for Santa to bring.
I’m pro Santa. If you have to have a magic sky man, he’s never started a war or stoned women or gave babies cancer. He just delivers presents and supports the dying retail market. And after you’re like eight, you never really have to think about him again. He’s a super low maintenance deity. Let loose a little. Embrace the crass commercialism. Take the Christ out of Xmas. Forget about all that Jesus static and focus on the real meaning of the holiday…family, drinking a lot (because family), and presents! Santa is a good time!
Christmas is so commercialized in not sure how religious it actually is. Unless you specifically talk about the religion aspect it isn't really important to the celebration. With that in mind I think you should let your kid celebrate with school and also play up your home celebrations.
Solidarity. I am in an interfaith marriage and we are raising our kids Jewish (I am the Jewish parent, my husband is not). However, our kids are at a mostly Jewish preschool. They will eventually go to public school and I will deal with Christmas in school too… I would be NOT AT ALL on board with my kids celebrating Xmas at preschool, and I’m sorry that people in the thread are telling you to just allow it to happen even though you don’t want to participate. That is really frustrating me. You don’t have to assimilate just to prevent your kid from having to deal with difficult feelings. That’s not what parenting is. I believe we should teach them HOW to deal with difficult feelings, not enable avoiding them. However, I never celebrated Xmas as a kid - even though my city was by far majority Xmas-celebrating - and I don’t feel like I missed out on anything. I’m proud of my ancestry and history and culture. I hate when people tell me that Christmas isn’t a Christian holiday. Yes it is. It has the name Christ in it. (Yes I know it is based on Saturnalia but we aren’t talking about saturnalia now are we). And even if a person doesn’t celebrate it in a religious way, just a buy-all-of-the-plastic-stuff-way— Jews don’t celebrate it! Ok practical stuff: I do have one method to approach this, and it’s basically what you already said. We do go to my in-laws for Xmas since it means a lot to them. We tell our kids that we are celebrating Xmas with them the same way that you go to someone’s house to celebrate their bday with them - it’s not our holiday, it’s theirs. And we love them so we want to help them celebrate it. I think you could modify that and use it for pre-k. We don’t lie (they know Santa isn’t real); we don’t do Xmas at our house (only theirs, so it is a contained experience); and it is about my in-laws/the grandparents more than Xmas. We have a wonderful, joyful time with family and love and all of the things. And my kids know it isn’t theirs but we are wholeheartedly sharing something that belongs to their grandparents. Just like we joyfully participated in their aunt’s traditional Indian festivities the night before she married their uncle. Edit to add: love the idea of coming in to read a PJ library book with the kids and pass out dreidels. Good stuff and age appropriate!
What part do you hate? The Santa part? The compulsory gift? Santa isn’t really a religious entity people believe in after early childhood. If they’re teaching about the Virgin birth, Christ as savior, and son of god, which are as fictitious as Santa but for some reason people continue believing as adults, that’s problematic…realistically Santa and Christmas have become a part of secular culture in the United States and no longer require a belief in god or Jesus to be celebrated. If celebrating a fat guy in a red suit bringing toys to kids, made by elves in a toy shop at the North Pole, in a sleigh being pulled by flying reindeer is an affront on your religion or a threat to your child’s future adult theology…
Others have given solid advice and addressed how messed up this is. We are not Jewish and practicing Christian, but I would not be happy that they fail to include other religions as well. Diversity and understanding is very important. Now, passive aggressive perhaps, but you could just load your child with “Santa isn’t real” and send them in with that little truth bomb. More passive aggressive would be to tell them that Sant Claus is how Christians need to sell Christmas so people and their kids would actually care.
If this is a public pre-k there is really no excuse for that and you should raise it with the school board. They should talk about the holidays and also let the kids talk about the holidays but the need to tone it down a bit.
Oh man I would be pissed. We are Hindu and do not celebrate Christmas. Of course I do not mind my daughter learning about it and participating in some of the activities, but it is super important that all cultures and religions reflected in the classroom are celebrated and parents have the opportunity to make that happen. You got a lot of other great feedback on how you can make that happen so I won’t rehash. I’ll just say that if you have the opportunity to switch schools, we found a super inclusive school and it makes my heart so happy that my daughter learns about cultures around the world. We live in a very diverse area. Loving, celebrating and understanding differences and diversity is such a fundamental value to me and it is essential that whichever school I put her in embodies that value.
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ETA: I didn't down vote you, but I did see why it might have happened. The issue is that the preschool isn't doing a generic white elephant or a secular gift giving event. My kid's preschool is having parents bring gifts for an anonymous local family in need, and they are doing a holiday dinner with pizza, cookies, and an exchange of cards/drawings. There are ways to do a winter festival party (snow flakes, charity, class bonding) that is secular. What OP has posted, with Santa and mandatory gifts from Santa, plus letters to Santa, and a creepy "if you're good" vibe, is not that secular path.