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.

However, one thing I've learned over the years is that I'm not right about everything. Another is that who I am, my beliefs and my lifestyle color how I see things, and that others see them differently.  I could write a post on the proper way to be inclusive during the holiday season but the fact of the matter is, I've never felt excluded during this time of year and the girls in my troop do celebrate Christmas in one fashion or another.  So, I decided to ask.  I developed a survey and promulgated it on Facebook groups for Girl Scout leaders.  

The survey asked whether respondents were religious, whether their troop was affiliated in any way with a house of worship and whether all the girls shared the same faith.  Next, I invited those who did not celebrate Christmas to share with us what they wished they could tell everyone about the holiday season and their children. Finally, I asked what their troops did to celebrate the holiday season.  

Who Responded

Given where I posted the survey, it shouldn't be surprising that 96% of those who responded identified as troop leaders or co-leaders.  

Next, I asked people if they considered themselves to be religious.  41 people said they definitely were. 22 said they were somewhat religious.  15 said there was a faith that was traditional in their family or culture and to which they nominally belonged, but that they did not really practice.  24 said they were not religious.  The first ten or so people who responded did not have "not religious" as a choice--someone suggested that would be a better response than the ones offered so I amended the survey.  2 said religion was not important and 24 (including 2 of the first 10 who weren't offered "not religious") said they had definitely rejected religion.  One thing I was trying to do with the non-religious answers was to differentiate between those for whom religion was a non-issue, something that just didn't interest them, and those who had made a deliberate decision that religion was not a good thing and that they rejected it.  

44 of those who responded said that the faith they practice is the majority faith in their area/community.  23 said theirs was a minority faith, but that there were enough adherents in the area that they were considered.  11 said there were very few people of their faith in their area.  65% of the people responding to the survey answered this question.  

68% said the girls in their troops were of different faiths. 25% did not know whether their girls were of the same faith and 7% said their girls were of the same faith.

When asked about troop affiliations with houses of worship, 61% had no affiliation.  37% meet at a house of worship, but state that the group provides meeting space only.  2% said they have to obey certain faith-based rules but that their troop is not just members of the faith and 1% said their troop is part of the group's youth ministry and that some religious programming is expected. 

Holiday Activities

Next the survey had a variety of holiday-themed activities and I asked everyone to note whether they would consider that activity appropriate in their home--in other words, if they found their daughter doing it or a similar thing, that they would not re-direct or explain why we did not do that at our house and whether they thought the activity was appropriate for Girl Scouts.  (appropriate abbreviated as "ok" on chart below). The numbers are the number of responses, not percents. 

Activity	Ok for Home	Ok for Girl Scouts	Ok for Girl Scouts only if you are sure no girls are not Christian	Not Ok for Girl Scouts
Coloring a picture of Rudolph	86	71	23	18
Singing “Frosty the Snowman”	83	100	10	6
Singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”	80	41	31	35
Singing “Silent Night”	76	27	22	50
Having a selection of coloring sheets available including Nativity Scenes, Menorahs and Winter Scenes	69	56	12	38
Having a party at the end of December with a gift exchange	78	82	16	16
Passing out treats at the community lights display	74	97	12	8
Making paper Dreidels and learning to play the Dreidel game	75	72	4	25
Each girl gives a presentation about her family’s holiday traditions, no matter what holiday or when	70	112	1	6
Making ornaments with no religious theme	77	77	22	14
Making and decorating star and candy cane shaped cookies	81	83	20	11
Contributing a toy to Toys for Tots	79	108	9	3
Coloring Christmas-themed placemats for Meals on Wheels	76	67	23	22
Creating a Nativity Scene out of felt and popsicle sticks	59	16	17	59

Does Religiosity Affect Results?

As noted above, I asked people to classify their level of religious belief and, if they practiced a faith, whether it is the dominant faith in their area.  For the purpose of this section I divided people into four categories:  

• Religious Dominant--these were people who said they were definitely or somewhat religious and that their faith was the dominant one in their area
• Religious Minority--these people said they were definitely or somewhat religious and that their faith was a minority one in their area
• Reject Religion--these people said they definitely rejected religion
• Other

Religious Dominant:

 There were 35 people in this group.  On average, they found 7.72 of my 14 proposed activities to be acceptable for Girl Scouts.  The median (half above, half below) number they found acceptable was 7 and the modes (numbers that appeared most frequently) were 6 and 14. 

Religious Minority

There were 24 people in this group.  On average, they found 7.125 of my 14 proposed activities to be acceptable for Girl Scouts.  The median was 7 and the modes are 2, 7, and 14. 

Reject Religion

Of those who said they rejected religion, the average number of acceptable activities was 7.7. The mean was 7 and the mode was 10.  The number of people in this group was 23.

Other

36 people were in this group.  The average number of of acceptable activities was 9.51. The mean was 9 and the mode was 8.  

All Responses

Of the 118 people who responded, the average number of acceptable activities was 8.19 and the mean and mode were both 8.  

What Did Minorities Reject?

Most of us look at world through our own lenses.  What can seem so obvious to one group of people can fly right over the heads of others.  On the other hand, just as I don't speak for all 62 year old white Catholics, no one person speaks for all the _____.  However, if large numbers of people in a group have a problem with something, those of us outside the group need to take that into consideration.  

35 people said that their religion was a minority in the area.  Some people who said they rejected religion also answered this question stating they were in the minority, so I counted them in this section.  Based on some of the answers, some of the people in this section may be celebrating Christmas--so it may be Baptist in a Catholic area or similar.   

I looked at people who said they were not part of the dominant religion in their area and what activities they either said were appropriate for Girl Scouts or inappropriate for Girl Scouts.  I did not count the ones that said an activity was ok only if you know all the girls were Christian.  

17 found coloring Rudolph acceptable; 9 did not. 

26 were okay with singing "Frosty the Snowman"; 3 were not.

8 found "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" acceptable; 14 did not.

"Silent Night" was acceptable to only 6; 17 did not believe it was.

Opinions on a variety of coloring sheets were more mixed; 17 yeas, 14 nays.

While 22 were fine with a party with gift exchange, 6 were not.

Passing out treats at a community light show was fine with 23, and not for 6.

17 were ok with making and playing Dreidel, 6 were not.

31 believed the girls presenting on family holidays was acceptable, 2 did not.

While 19 were ok with non-religious ornaments, 7 were not.

22 were okay with making candy cane and star cookies; 4 were not.

Toys for Tots was fine with 31, only 1 person objected.

Christmas placemats were mixed bag.  14 were fine with it, 9 were not.

As I expected, 17 people found making a Nativity craft was not appropriate, five said it was.   

Looking at the individual responses, I found some to be interesting.  There were quite a few people who were ok with the cookies but not the ornaments, or vice-versa.  If that was you, I invite you to leave a comment here explaining why.  

Celebrating?

The final question I asked is how/whether your troop celebrates during the holidays.  72% said they have a party with no religious overtones.  14% said they celebrate Girl Scout holidays and ignore other ones.  4% said they keep Christ in their Christmas celebration. 10% said they don't celebrate any holidays as a troop.  

Comment

The only question I haven't covered on this post was the one where I asked those who don't celebrate Christmas to tell us whatever they wanted to.  I got 50 responses and this post is long enough so I'll work those into another post.  

As should be abundantly clear, I am not a professional survey designer, and if I could re-write the survey now that I've spent the day crafting this post, I would make quite a few changes. However, this is a hobby not a job.  I make no representations that this data is representative, truthful or that the survey takers understood what I was trying to ask or that I completely understood what they were trying to say.  

I hope this post gives  you food for thought when it comes to crafting your troop's end of the year activities.  

I interviewed a Jewish troop leader and Girl Scout mom about this survey and you can read about it here. 

I also solicited comments from readers who do not celebrate Christmas and compiled them into this post.