My school is inclusive. We recognize and learn about holidays our families celebrate: Eid, Chinese New Year, Diwali. Even though we do all those things, Christmas is still the big one. At Christmas, every classroom gets decorated. Students are involved in "Days of Giving" where they do kind things for others. There are dress up days connected to Christmas...and more. I often steer away from too much of it because the school does enough and besides that, I have often had many students who do not celebrate Christmas.
This year, I decided to venture into new territory and have my students write letters to Santa. Perhaps I shouldn't have been, but the pushback surprised me.
"I don't celebrate Christmas. Do I have to write a letter?"
"I don't even believe in Santa. Do I have to write a letter?"
"I already wrote a letter to Santa. Do I have to write a letter?"
We adjusted. Some wrote to their parents. Some wrote to Santa. I felt a little frustrated with the response but tried to make accomodations so everyone felt like they were being respected. It did make me think that perhaps I was on to something by skipping some of these types of activities.
We read a book this month that I love about Santa called A Boy Called Christmas (Matt Haig). It seemed to me that everyone was quite engaged in the book. On the last day of school we watched the movie.
One moment really stuck out to me. One student who chose to write a letter to her parents because she doesn't celebrate Christmas, doesn't believe in Santa and thinks he's dumb, said loudly in the middle of the movie, "Look at that! A brown elf. Isn't that cool?!" Suddenly, she had a noticable connection.
That is the power of children being able to see themselves in stories. Representation matters
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