Is there room for Christmas anymore?:

Earlier this year, the Woodland, Illinois, school district moved to prohibit bus drivers from playing Christmas carols on the radio. In Denver, officials were poised to remove the "Merry Christmas" sign from the city's holiday display. In both cases, citizens protested until officials changed their minds. By contrast, in Maplewood, New Jersey, school officials are sticking by their decisions to ban any religious-themed carols--even instrumental versions--from holiday concerts. And at Freedom Elementary School in southern Florida, the holiday pageant has been replaced altogether with a patriotism-themed program. ("There are a lot of rules and regulations out there," the school principal told the local press. "You're trying to be respectful of everyone.") And forget nativity scenes: Even Christmas trees are a no-no in an increasing number of schools.

How sad. In an effort to acknowledge everyone's beliefs, we're creating a climate in which people are too paranoid to allow the expression of anyone's beliefs. Clearly this shouldn't be the case. The courts have already established that the way to handle the issue of religious expression isn't to banish Christmas trees from the public square but to ensure equal access for anyone who might be interested in displaying a menorah or the seven symbols of Kwanzaa [..]

Basically, everyone needs to unclench and have a cup of frigging eggnog.

According to the ethnological study in Relations of Compatibility and Incompatibility.., however, the conclusion about the ethnical component of Bulgarian village mentality should be a wholly different one. There was and is, the thesis is here, a 'system of coexistence' between christians and muslims in the Bulgarian village, in which both parties respect the difference of the other and expresses that in traditional conventions of exchange and tribute. The ethnologists have recorded these conventions exhaustively. The groups share the village in which they live in patterns of day-to-day life passed on from generation to generation, and in the confidence that both parties will rebuff any infringement of these relations.

This system of coexistence rests on several pillars. The exchange of gifts at religious feasts, mutual visits at marriage and birth and the presence at funerals (and participation therein according to each others traditions) make the religious difference a familiar one. In this mutual involvement, the boundary between the groups is made unproblematic and yet cultivated. In the northern Rhodopes, for example, the muslims take it upon themselves to serve the guests at christian marriages and the christians do the same at islamic marriages. Sometimes, too, the boundary is stretched a little for the benefit of pleasant relations - drinking is done together (alcoholism is a problem among muslims too), and so is eating. Moreover one participates in each other's feasts - one third of the muslims in Bulgaria celebrates Christmas. As one muslim from Konoush, who on the eve of Christmas was readying himself to slaughter the pig of the priest, summarized it: "We are going to become Christians for 40 days now. We eat pork and drink wine. After that we'll be Muslims again". And finally, religion itself is a bridge, because an underlying 'spiritual map', dating from pagan times, is also shared. The faithful of both confessions share the same superstitions and believe in the same healing powers and sanctity of the same places - and thus, Bulgarian muslims stay overnight in the Saint Nicholas Church, and christians visit the Demir Baba Teke.

Christmas cancelled due to lack of interest
By Sophie Goodchild, Home Affairs Correspondent
19 December 2004


It will be a bleak midwinter for Manchester churches, according to the first major study of seasonal congregations. The capital of the north will have Britain's emptiest pews on Christmas Day.

The city comes at the bottom of a league table of Yuletide attendance, with barely 2 per cent of the population in church on Christmas Eve and the following morning. In contrast, towns such as Guildford in Surrey can expect a flood of "Christmas tourists" - a breed of worshipper who expects what the authors call a "high-class version of the pantomime".

Dr David Voas, a specialist in religious change at Manchester University, said the Christmas worshippers are "confident enough to go into their parish church although they are not seen the rest of the year". The Government-funded research, published today, is based on Church of England statistics and reveals a marked North-South divide. Christmas congregations in Durham, Sheffield, Liverpool and Birmingham are not significantly bigger than normal. This contrasts with southern towns and rural areas where attendances can treble. The most godly place is Hereford, where more than 10 per cent of the population will be at an Anglican church this Christmas.

As one muslim from Konoush, who on the eve of Christmas was readying himself to slaughter the pig of the priest, summarized it:

In the northern Rhodopes, for example, the muslims take it upon themselves to serve the guests at christian marriages and the christians do the same at islamic marriages.

As someone who's old enough to remember squirming through mandatory carol singing in grade school*, I'm glad that this is no longer going on.

Why isn't it sufficient to have the church, home and the streets for caroling? Why this insistence on religion in public school?