{"id":515,"date":"2013-03-21T09:29:24","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T13:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=515"},"modified":"2014-03-21T10:51:04","modified_gmt":"2014-03-21T14:51:04","slug":"school-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/21\/school-holidays\/","title":{"rendered":"School Holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"

Honeybun’s\u00a0spring break starts tomorrow and I\u2019m most thankful that after today all celebratable holidays will be done.\u00a0 Her class is having an Easter Party today, which like their Christmas Party, I have issues with.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mind celebrating generally non-denominational holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Valentine\u2019s Day but Christian holidays bother me.\u00a0 Where are the parties for Hanukah, Passover, Ramadan, or any of the other many Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. holidays?<\/p>\n

We are not a religious family.\u00a0 We do not attend weekly services or teach our children faith-based principles (we do however expect them to act in a universally respectable and responsible way).\u00a0 My children have been to Jerusalem, seen the Wailing Wall and the Dome on the Rock.\u00a0 They have been into tons of different churches as well as mosques and wandered the streets of many cities\u2019 Jewish Quarters, and visited Dachau Concentration Camp. \u00a0Honeybun\u00a0will gladly tell you all about when we went to Mother Mary\u2019s House in Turkey and can recognize Jesus (both baby and man) from a mile away.\u00a0 But we have taught her this stuff in the context of history, not religion.\u00a0 We really only discuss faith when Honeybun\u00a0asks specific questions in which we usually frame our response as \u201cSome people believe\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that I\u2019m against religion or religious holidays, we celebrate Easter and Christmas at home, however, that is at home and we celebrate these holidays as family, not religious, celebrations similar to Thanksgiving. \u00a0I believe school is a place to teach diversity (unless the school is religion based, which Honeybun’s\u00a0is not).\u00a0 I never worked at a program where we celebrated religious holidays.\u00a0 We would touch on the outlying topics such as snowmen, reindeer, presents and wreaths for example at Christmas time—not all purely non-denominational but always without reference to Christmas.\u00a0 We would also, however, talk about dreidels, the menorah and Christmas Trees, trying to give equal time to each and of course would discuss or present anything our parents requested during these times.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, however, Honeybun’s\u00a0school is not taking a diverse, faith-based approach to any of the holidays they celebrate.\u00a0 They are taking a very superficial and unhealthy approach to the celebration. Every holiday party has included parents being asked to bring in cupcakes, cookies, and chips (oh, and sometimes a small bit of fruit) along with other small items.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mind helping out with crafting supplies or curriculum items but when my child returns home with her pepper or seaweed snack still in her backpack because she ate cupcakes and candy at school, it bothers me a little bit.<\/p>\n

I was also very upset in December when I was asked to bring in a small wrapped gift for Santa to deliver to Honeybun\u00a0when he visited school.\u00a0 I don\u2019t even want Santa visiting our home (my personal quest\u2014and struggle with hubby–to keep my children focused on what Mommy and Daddy do, not a fictious character) so why would I want him to bring her things at school?\u00a0 Not only did I have to go find a special gift for Honeybun, something under $5 but would dazzle just as much as her friends\u2019 presents, I had to also find something for Sugarplum since she could not be left out of the receiving end of things.<\/p>\n

Now comes Easter and the request for an entire (\u201csmall\u201d) bag of eggs filled with \u201ctreats you want your child to have\u201d and her name on the eggs for an Easter Egg hunt.\u00a0 First off, I can\u2019t send Honeybun’s\u00a0eggs filled with apple and cucumber when her friends will have chocolates and candies so it\u2019s not really my choice.\u00a0 Second, though Easter is the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ and Honeybun\u00a0can tell you all about Jesus being killed (again, in a\u00a0 historical context), you know this is not a topic the school is going to touch.\u00a0 So why touch Easter at all?\u00a0 Focus on spring, chicks, bunnies, and flowers.<\/p>\n

And the only mention of St. Patrick\u2019s Day?\u00a0 A leprechaun came into the classroom and messed up the names.\u00a0 What a disappointment!\u00a0 I can only hope a public Elementary school next year will do better job at being multi-cultural.<\/p>\n

Pictures: Honeybun\u00a0in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (looking at the assumed site of Jesus’ Crucifixion); Sugarplum at Hagia Sophia, former Church then Mosque, now Museum; Honeybun\u00a0at Dachau Concentration Camp<\/p>\n

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Honeybun’s\u00a0spring break starts tomorrow and I\u2019m most thankful that after today all celebratable holidays will be done.\u00a0 Her class is having an Easter Party today, which like their Christmas Party, I have issues with.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mind celebrating generally non-denominational holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Valentine\u2019s Day but Christian holidays bother me.\u00a0 Where are the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tiny-travellers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3606,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions\/3606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}