My Christmas Survey: A Closer Look

I'm old as dirt and my upbringing reflects that. Though I attended public schools after the Supreme Court ruled against school prayer, the unspoken rule was to see what you could get away with. My elementary school had a Nativity pageant with traditional Christmas carols. One teacher asked if we had been to church or Sunday School for Easter. A daily devotional was blasted over the intercom when I was in junior high. There was clearly an expectation that "everyone" was Christian, or at least should be. Of course, even in those days, not everyone was.

Christmas: An Outsider's View

 I recently ran a survey of members of a bunch of Facebook groups for Girl Scout leaders about what was appropriate to do during the holiday season.  You can read about the survey results here.

One question I asked was "For those who are non-Christian or who do not celebrate Christmas is there anything you wish you could tell the rest of us about the holiday season and your children?"  This post is a compilation of the responses to that question.  I know it is long but I really thought the best way to share these people's thoughts was to show them in a fashion only edited for clarity, spelling etc., so grab your favorite drink, put up your feet and scroll away. Each paragraph below is the response of a different person.  

Holiday Celebrations with Diverse Troops

I will do my best to be...considerate and caring...to respect myself and others...and be a sister to every Girl Scout.  We begin all our Girl Scout meetings with these words, but do we live up to them?  

I am writing this the Sunday before Thanksgiving and a few days ago I was perusing my Facebook feed which includes quite a few Girl Scout leader Facebook groups and the topic of holiday parties came up.  I don't remember what I read, but I know the thought crossed my mind "Would the non-Christian she is talking about see it that way?" What I read wasn't someone saying "We are a Christian troop, you can choose to belong or not", or "everyone is declaring war on Christmas".  Rather it was someone who sounded like she wanted to be open and inclusive who said something that struck me as not quite right.