The Christmas cover-up

It’s that time of year again, when age-old carols play on the radio and stores start extending shopping hours.

Yes, Christmas is around the corner, but you’ll never hear a public school utter the words “Christmas break.”

I have no idea why schools don’t call winter break what it really is.

It’s a break for Christmas and we all know it.

Is it an attempt to be politically correct? A Hindu, Buddhist, Jew, or follower of any other religion knows exactly what the break is for.
Why don’t schools come out and say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Easter?”

The issue lies within the concept of our nation’s separation of church and state. Perhaps schools like George Mason University don’t want to seem overly supportive of Christianity.

It would be better if schools actually acknowledged other holidays besides Christmas.

I remember when Eid al-Fitr happened at the end of Ramadan this year.

I had to take a test that day. It would have been nice to observe my religious holiday and take a day off, but the professor wouldn’t allow me to make up the test. So I had no choice but to take it.

I’m not complaining about being forced to take the test; if I really wanted, I could have caused a stir and started a religious debate on campus.
However, that’s not what I want. What I really want is a little more recognition from public schools for holidays of religions other than Christianity. I understand that schools can’t please every individual religion.

Taking school off for every religious holiday would wreak havoc on schedules and simply wouldn’t work. But it wouldn’t hurt to have one or two days off to celebrate major events of all major religions.

Instead, we have schools trying to uphold this false pretense of separation of church and state, a principle that isn’t even found in our Constitution.

In reality though, this concept, the same one that schools are trying to uphold, is utter nonsense when it applies to this holiday.

So where do we go from here? Simple: We wish everyone a “Merry Christmas” and move on.

Some people get religiously offended, and some might want to deny that “winter break” is really Christmas break, but that’s their prerogative.
The rest of us can clearly see that this entire holiday is engineered so that students can be home for the Christmas holiday and spend time with their families, which isn’t a bad thing.

Schools need to man up and simply say, “Merry Christmas” to all their faculty and students.

They need to realize that even if none of their students celebrate Christmas, there’s no reason to try and be culturally sensitive or politically correct.

Instead of attempting to be politically correct, schools should give time off for major holidays in religions other than Christianity.

I know that it would be impossible to implement in the near future, but I hope a day comes when followers of religions other than Christianity get days off to celebrate their holidays.

This winter, we might not get to celebrate our holidays, but we all still receive the gift of a nice long break.