This is a very disturbing story involving little ones, but of course it's from Smeg's neck of the woods,...so whatcha expect? It's good to be concerned about offending, but like the internet, chocolate, and ther things... you can do too much and take things too far... Kindergartens Ban Santa Claus? Mon Dec 2, 7:52 AM ET Add Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo! MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Several Australian kindergartens have banned Santa Claus this Christmas for fear that he may offend minority groups, the Herald-Sun newspaper said Thursday. One of the kindergartens planned to replace him with a clown and another said it would have an end-of-year party instead of a Christmas party, the Melbourne tabloid said. At another, Santa Claus would be asked to be selective about which kids he paid attention to. "There is a Muslim family in one of the groups and we didn't want to offend them," a worker at the kindergarten was quoted as saying. The Santa ban became a political campaigning issue ahead of a weekend ballot in Australia's second most populous state, Victoria. Opposition Liberal leader Robert Doyle attacked Victoria's Labor premier, Steve Bracks, over the boycott, saying it was political correctness gone mad, the newspaper said. "Most little kids actually like Santa and I haven't noticed him being politically incorrect or damaging to the youthful psyche," Doyle said.
Yeah seriously... Santa does promote Christian values but when is it the case where the one person has to tolerate the majority's opinion, and how many times will that happen in life? Almost all I tell you what. All this does is make those kids who were eagerly waiting for Santa pissed at the one boy who probably didn't know what he was doing. Instead of being part of the group, he's "different" now.
Heard about that last week. Utterly unbelievable. As I've said before, where is society heading? I remember when my old school principal used to dress up as Santa on the last day of school and give us all lollies. Now if anyone did that today, they would be sued. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Does Santa really serve as an advocate of Christian values? Or, since he was plastered with the colors of Coca Cola, does he really represent pure consumption and commercial enterprise? If I'm not mistaken, the modern image of Santa came into being in the early 1930's as Coca-Cola hired Haddon Sundblom to paint advertising posters, including the following: This could easily be one of those oft-repeated but completely untrue legends, however. According to a 1997 New Scientist article, Santa Claus was once based on the Lapp-land Shamen who wore the colors to represent a certain psychadelic mushroom. In any event, I believe Santa was banned in England by the puritans for a while. He's had a rocky road with Christianity, and you could argue he's just as much a symbol of pagan greed and gluttony as he a symbol worthy of the Holy Spirit. edit: I am so freaking sloppy it ain't funny. (sigh)
I believe that Santa evolved from St. Nicklaus (sp?). He would leave treats for people in shoes that were left on the front porch (IIRC). Being a Christian saint, and a symbol of charity and generosity, I would say he does advocate Christian values. On the other hand, changing Christmas into a gift giving holiday has certainly commercialized it and taken away from it some of its religious foundation. That would seem to make it more acceptable to non-Christians though.
I'm interested in some opinions on Christmas time from some non-Christians here. I had a buddy in high school who was Hindu and his family had no problem with Christmas...they didn't take part in the Christian aspect of it, but they loved it as a kind of American cultural holiday. They had a tree, put out lights, exchanged gifts, and "believed" in Santa when they were kids...not because of the birth of Christ, but because it was fun. I celebrate both aspects, as a Christian and as a fun Holiday, myself. I had a friend who was Muslim in high school and he didn't really support Christmas, but he didn't mind it either...he actually was quite partial to Johnny Mathis Christmas songs...anyways, his opinion was that since the majority of people in America supported Christmas...he was obliged to live with that and accept it as part of the American culture, since he was American...and even though Santa didn't visit his house at Christmas time...he and his family had no problem with other people celebrating or having Santa visit their houses, or even having holiday stuff at school. How do some of you feel?
In my household, we did the Christmas tree, the Christmas dinner, the exchaning of presents, the charade of a Santa Claus (my dad always brought our presents from "Santa" down under the tree in the middle of the night before we woke up on the 25th) of course now that the kids are all grown up (myself included), we don't really do anything for Christmas anymore. No more gifts, or christmas dinner. My mom puts the tree up every year b/c she likes it. I usually help her b/c it was my favorite thing to do as a kid. of course, since I consider myself to be American more than anything else, this is normal for me. Plus both of my parents are American citizens, so we're pretty much the most Americanized Indian family in the nation.
Dear lord I just checked the web site and I saw he has merchandise. My Christmas shopping just got a LOT easier.
We're a family of 6 and we celebrate the gift sharing even if some of us doesn't agree with the original intended meaning. It is a part of the American culture and we celebrate Christmas as something to bring together the family. Ironically at one Christmas, my sister invited her friend whose religious beliefs didn't allow him to celebrate the "pagan aspects" of Christmas (no gift swapping, tree decorating, etc...). We all felt pretty bad at the end when we were enjoying giving and opening up gifts while all he could do was watch.
get over it man!! you're all hung up over this 50 year old clown!!! great seinfeld reference...don't think it went unnoticed, getsmartnow!
