#10 Here Christmas is mostly in the shops and on television, Mrs. D. (It's a Wonderful Life and Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer, etc). Public displays generally include something for Hanukkah and lots of winter-themed stuff, including streetlight decorations. In Germany (and I can't speak about the rest of Europe, but I don't see why it would be that different), the Christmas markets go up in the city centers in November, and are open daily and well past dark. Each little town and village has its own Christmas market as well, although generally just one of the weekends, and the whole town turns out. Every park, church and town center has a Nativity Scene. Gift giving officially starts on St. Nicholas Day, December 6th, when the children put out hay for St. Nick's horse and get chocolates in return, although the children also have Advents Calendars, many of which give a small chocolate or gift as well as a little picture for each date of December leading up to the 25th. The pre-school children learn Christmas carols and make Christmas presents for their parents at school, and are read the story of the Nativity. I don't know about the grammar schools -- we left before the children were old enough. Images of the Christ Child and Father Christmas are everywhere. And there isn't any question about celebrating winter, or the holidays of other religions that occur around the same time -- this is a celebration of one of the two main Christian holidays. Odd, in a way, considering how irreligious Germans are the rest of the year.
In comparison, Christmas here is much more a family celebration. Even in the public schools my children go to, where some of the teachers still don't in their hearts understand that not everyone is Christian like them. So at one Winter choral concert, trailing daughter #1 sang a song wishing Happy Hanukkah to our Jewish friends, who don't celebrate Christmas like us, and as many songs about winter as the lovely old Christmas carol... but there was acknowledgement and acceptance of varied beliefs and non-beliefs. The school children made presents with peppermint sticks and snowflakes, not crosses. And the parents with other beliefs came in and made presentations to the elementary classes about their particular holidays. (For six years running I did classroom presentations at the request of the tds' various teachers for Hanukkah about the Syrio-Greek king Antiochus IV Epiphanes vs. the Maccabees -- the first war for freedom of belief, then taught the kids how to play dreydle. My Jain girlfriend talked about Divali, which is celebrated in India. A Muslim parent would come in to talk about Ramadan.) The school libraries even contain teaching kits for the various holidays, for those teachers missing a certain religion amongst that class's student body. The high school choir teacher is excited to find a Renaissance Hanukkah song, arranged for 4-part chorus plus soloists, a welcome change from his usual reperatoire. |