Crisis of holidays

When I was a girl, everyone celebrated Halloween.

We all donned masks and costumes, gathered our plastic pumpkins, and went trick-or-treating. We had parties in school - complete with costumes - and we sang pumpkin carols (courtesy of Hallmark and Charles Schulz) in music class. My mother hung pasteboard pumpkin cut-outs in our living room windows, and we carved our jack-o-lanterns. Dishes of candy corn sat on the table in the living room, and we ate mini candy bars for days afterwards.

It's always been one of my favorite holidays. One year, we had a party in our garage, complete with apple bobbing and a fortune teller. Every year I pull out my well-worn copy of Harvest of Holidays and read my girls The Blue-Nosed Witch, a story they love.

It's just fun.

Thesse days, the girls don't celebrate at school. The celebration has been pulled because - and I"m just assuming, but I'm sure this is accurate - some people do not celebrate this holiday, and the schools don't want to offend famlies or exclude children who don't celebrate this day.

Political correctness run amok? Perhaps. But it's a decision I can live with, even support.

In the doctor's office the other day, I overhead several of the nurses and lab techs in the hallway, bemoaning the fact the our school district no longer calls the December break "Christmas break." They no longer have a Christmas pageant or have Easter vacation. Oh, they said, if they had kids in the district, they just wouldn't tolerate this.

But what about parents and children who don't celebrate Christmas? Or Easter? Why should they have to take part, however tacitly, in holidays that are not part of their religion or their tradition? Why do Christians get to assume everyone is the same?

We are a country of varying beliefs, a melting pot of nationalities and traditions. If schools celebrate any religion above another, or lead prayers, then it implies that this is the ONLY religion, thus excluding children with other beliefs. In the United States, this goes against the Constitution.

Come December, we will put up a Christmas tree - or four. We will sing carols and give gifts. And we will go to church on Christmas Eve. But we will go to our church and hear the Christmas message the way we believe it. In the weeks before Christmas, we will celebrate the winter solstice, and we will light the menorah for Hanukkah. This coincides with our beliefs, and I appreciate the freedom we have to worship the way we choose. If this means sacrificing a school Halloween party in order to respect others, it's a compromise I can live with.

By taking these celebrations out of the public schools, we don't lose anything, really. We have our pumpkins out and orange lights on the porch. My children will trick-or-treat, as will their friends - our neighborhood takes its Halloweening very seriously. But I have to respect those who do not care to participate - it's their right.

I like a good, scary Halloween as much as the next gal, but I am terrified by taking away or belitting someone else's rights. I'll settle for the minor scare of the Boo! from hoardes of trick-or-treaters at my door. I think it's a fair trade.