I have not the words...UPDATE: Post #132

[ladyknight1]

Please don't get this thread locked. This is not the place for political discussions.

[Garden Goblin]

Please don't get this thread locked. This is not the place for political discussions.

The suggestion that I keep my child home from school if I do not want him to have to participate in a religious celebration was inappropriate, as was the implication that I feel that way because I need a message of goodwill in my life.

[Corvid]

That their child was "traumatized" by having to give up his/her "present."  How rude we were to put them in that position.

Too darned bad for them.  That is known as REARING YOUR CHILD.  If one is rearing one's child with non-mainstream beliefs or attitudes, one will almost certainly sometimes need to deal with issues just like these and would do well to use them as teaching opportunities instead of getting annoyed that everyone else in the world is not revolving around you.

[MamaMootz]

You know, my DD's best friend is of a religion that doesn't celebrate any holidays, including birthdays. I have to say that her family and her parents are the epitome of graciousness when it comes to other people celebrating. They understand that the world doesn't revolve around what they believe, and they quietly teach their children differently. I think that if their child ever got a gift like this and the parents didn't believe in giving the child the gift, they would quietly dispose of it and explain it to the child.

I wish that more people were like that. Believe whatever you like, but the people in the OP took offense where it wasn't intended at all - in fact, quite the opposite - the message the OP's DD was sending was that no matter WHAT the other kids' families celebrated, she wanted to give a gift to let people know she was thinking of them.

[ladyknight1]

I work with someone whose very strict religion prohibits celebrating anything but weddings and anniversaries. She is much like the parent in question and takes offense at any mention of a birthday or holiday being celebrated. She does always come to the holiday parties and 4th of July barbecue, but makes her beliefs known to all present.

[White Lotus]

Is violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment polite?  Is forcing me to send my children to private schools because of the "under God" portion of the Pedge of Allegiance inserted by anti-Communist types in the 1950's polite?  Is forcing me to take my child out of the public school I pay for, for a day or a week, so your children can celebrate their religious holiday at the community public school polite?  I think not.  Celebrate whatever you want, but don't FORCE my family into it by making it a "community" and "public" celebration, supported by my tax dollars, with, in the case of children and schools, MANDATORY participation in a religious festival not of our faith.
Are the parents who sent home that hate-filled note about a kind and not religious gift from a child to her classmates rude?  Absolutely.  And nuts, too. We would have said "thank you," and because it was not offensive, not against our religion, and a very nice thing to do, and hung it on a house plant.  If it was specifically religious and not ours, we would still have said "thank you" and donated it.

[Maggie]

Please please don't make this about religion or this thread will be locked.  The moderators are very serious about this.

[WillyNilly]

Please don't get this thread locked. This is not the place for political discussions.

The suggestion that I keep my child home from school if I do not want him to have to participate in a religious celebration was inappropriate, as was the implication that I feel that way because I need a message of goodwill in my life.

Is violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment polite?  Is forcing me to send my children to private schools because of the "under God" portion of the Pedge of Allegiance inserted by anti-Communist types in the 1950's polite?  Is forcing me to take my child out of the public school I pay for, for a day or a week, so your children can celebrate their religious holiday at the community public school polite?  I think not.  Celebrate whatever you want, but don't FORCE my family into it by making it a "community" and "public" celebration, supported by my tax dollars, with, in the case of children and schools, MANDATORY participation in a religious festival not of our faith.
Are the parents who sent home that hate-filled note about a kind and not religious gift from a child to her classmates rude?  Absolutely.  And nuts, too. We would have said "thank you," and because it was not offensive, not against our religion, and a very nice thing to do, and hung it on a house plant.  If it was specifically religious and not ours, we would still have said "thank you" and donated it.

I am not a Christian.  I was not raised in a Christian home. 

And yet I have celebrated "x-mas" (as I mentioned and clarified earlier in this thread) every December of my life.  For me, and my family, and my atheist DH, it is in no way shape or form a "religious" holiday.  I totally respect it is for many people.  But it is also a secular holiday that focuses on decorations, gifts, parties and food & drink, and good will towards others and peace on earth. I went to public school for 13 years (kindergarten through 12th grade) Christmas was always either totally balanced with other religious holidays as a way to learn about various cultures and history or totally secular. I never felt Christmas was forced on us as a Christian thing.

[mrkitty]

I think we all agree that the polite thing to do would have been for the parents of the child receiving the gift to just accept it gracefully and then use or dispose of it as they please, and then to leave it at that.

Any response other than accepting the gift or a polite thank you is rude and inappropriate. What I think would be really nice, though, is if everyone is free to celebrate whatever traditions they choose (or not) as they see fit. And accept kind gestures in the spirit in which they are expressed, and then move on with life. 

[Garden Goblin]

And yet I have celebrated "x-mas" (as I mentioned and clarified earlier in this thread) every December of my life.  For me, and my family, and my atheist DH, it is in no way shape or form a "religious" holiday.  I totally respect it is for many people.  But it is also a secular holiday that focuses on decorations, gifts, parties and food & drink, and good will towards others and peace on earth. I went to public school for 13 years (kindergarten through 12th grade) Christmas was always either totally balanced with other religious holidays as a way to learn about various cultures and history or totally secular. I never felt Christmas was forced on us as a Christian thing.

Having a winter party with some decorations and gift giving was not what I was responding to.  Neither was teaching 'some folks celebrate these holidays, let's learn a few things about them'.  Please view my original post where I quoted exactly what I was responding to.

What I think would be really nice, though, is if everyone is free to celebrate whatever traditions they choose (or not) as they see fit. And accept kind gestures in the spirit in which they are expressed, and then move on with life. 

This.

[WillyNilly]

And yet I have celebrated "x-mas" (as I mentioned and clarified earlier in this thread) every December of my life.  For me, and my family, and my atheist DH, it is in no way shape or form a "religious" holiday.  I totally respect it is for many people.  But it is also a secular holiday that focuses on decorations, gifts, parties and food & drink, and good will towards others and peace on earth. I went to public school for 13 years (kindergarten through 12th grade) Christmas was always either totally balanced with other religious holidays as a way to learn about various cultures and history or totally secular. I never felt Christmas was forced on us as a Christian thing.

Having a winter party with some decorations and gift giving was not what I was responding to.  Neither was teaching 'some folks celebrate these holidays, let's learn a few things about them'.  Please view my original post where I quoted exactly what I was responding to.

I did (Rusty's post).  I just read that "Christmas" reference as being a secular, public school type celebration, not a religious observance. Especially because the OP of this thread is about a family objecting to the ornament/gift not being religious but rather in line with the secular seasonal celebration.

[Garden Goblin]

I did (Rusty's post).  I just read that "Christmas" reference as being a secular, public school type celebration, not a religious observance. Especially because the OP of this thread is about a family objecting to the ornament/gift not being religious but rather in line with the secular seasonal celebration.

I suppose I'm just a 'politically correct wowser'.

[Roe]

I think if you wanted to write a note, you could say this:

"Dear other parents:
"I'm so sorry that my daughter's winter-break present was offensive to your family, and that it contributed to a difficult parenting situation for you. She had hoped to express her affection to her friends, and we thought perhaps kids could hang the sparkly snowflake in their windows to catch the winter sunshine and remind them of how much fun snow is.
    "Please return the snowflake as soon as you can, and accept our apologies for unwittingly including your child in our gift giving."

Yep, this is exactly what I'd send back.  Seriously. 

Some people will be offended no matter what and you really can't help them. 

[CrochetFanatic]

When you think about it, the offended parents not only chose to be offended, but chose to "traumatize" their child by taking away the snowflake.  Chose to.  And I won't say they were right or wrong to do so; their child, their business.  I don't think that aspect of it is on the OP, and I wonder how anyone could just be expected to know that the gift would be offensive to this one child's parents.

This is a loaded issue, and after reading through all of these posts my own opinion on the matter isn't set.  I think that, for the parents, it's a case of "It's not what you do; it's how you do it."  They weren't wrong to express that they were offended, but I think someone else who posted came up with a much nicer way they could have said it.  People react better to "In the future, please don't" than to "How dare you".

I remember that my second grade teacher was also Jewish, and I didn't know this until our classroom party (which we still had back when I was in school; I don't know how things are done now).  I wished her a Merry Christmas, and she smiled and said, "Thank you, but I'm Jewish.  I celebrate Chanukah."  And she went on to tell the class a bit about Chanukah.  Two of my classmates, I found out, were also Jewish, and they chimed in with their family experiences, sort of like show-and-tell.  It was a lot of fun to learn about what people do differently!

[kareng57]

The rule in my school district is that if you celebrate one holiday, you must celebrate all holidays.  So in December, we do a little Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanza, although I have yet to have a student that actually celebrates Kwanza.  I've never had an issue with any of the 'holiday' gifts I've given students, most of which have been snowflake-themed.  Interestingly, this year I noticed that I got quite a few Christmas gifts and greetings from my Muslim students.

IMO, this is the other parent's fault.  I have had quite a few parents inform me that they do not want their child celebrating Halloween.  Luckily, they have always notified me in advance, so I am able to make sure that their children are not exposed to anything they find offensive.  If a parent complained after the fact, I would politely let them know that they should have let me know ahead of time.

Honestly, I'd have been completely in favour if my kids' school had opted to stop celebrating Halloween.  It was getting utterly ridiculous - the whole day was devoted to it.  Okay, I could have been okay with it if it'd been a simple assembly/costume parade for about two hours.  But no, the rest of the day was devoted to pumpkin carving/games/goodies etc.  (I'm Christian but not in a denomination that prohibits Halloween).  And never mind that some kids (definitely not mine) were insistent that they couldn't possibly wear the same costume at school as they would be for T&Ting that night........

And really, I would also be in favour of not observing religious holidays at all in public schools.  Like it or not, many people do see Christmas as being a religious holiday as opposed to a secular holiday.  Christians who feel strongly about celebrating Christmas have lots of other opportunities to do so.