My son's sort-of-Nativity play at his sort-of-but-not denominational nursery school was this morning: so far as I can make out they managed to tip-toe around the whole God-specific thing quite well, but Thomas ended up as a red-nosed reindeer, which is surely a nod to Santa, which is surely a nod to St. Nicholas, which is surely ... what, exactly? Speaking as one atheist who finds this whole "Happy Holidays" thing rather fatuous (I seriously doubt any passing Jew, Sikh or Zoroastrian is going to be spiritually contaminated by my doling out blessings in the name of a Deity I don't believe in either), I do wonder what Dana Stevens was expecting from a show called Christmas in Washington if she really did "wait in vain for one politically correct, non-Christian number". The Rockettes in burkhas?
Posted by Alan Allport at December 17, 2004 11:20 AMOne reason I've only just found the time to jump in here with some Horatian glossing is that I've spent much of the last five weeks directing a version of A Christmas Carol with sixty ten-and-eleven-year-olds in Paddington. (This was after doing The Tempest with another sixty children of the same age in Oct/Nov.) The school asked for this as their Christmas production for parents. About two-thirds of the children are Muslim, many of the girls wear the hijab, and when we did the show on Wednesday many of the mothers in the audience were wearing it too.
Following the head teacher's plan, two other classes sang explicitly Christian songs before and after the performance. Everything was warmly applauded - songs about Jesus, authentic Dickensian sentiments including God Bless Us Every One, my little after-show homily about Scrooge reminding us that we can change our hearts as well as our external circumstances. There were no prior complaints from parents and no one walked out or protested. It was a very dark/expressionist version with lots of tritones in the instrumental music the children played and with the figures of Ignorance and Want featuring in frozen tableaux accompanied by sung semitonal tremolos. But that went down well too, and parents spoke afterwards about how good it was to hear the children as musicians as well as actors.
To have a hall full of people from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Afghanistan, Algeria, Somalia and West London all finding something valuable and powerful in Dickens's genius seems an occasion for happy reflection. The fact that it also came wrapped in a Christ-our-Lord outer package was pretty interesting and thought-provoking too.
Posted by: Tom Deveson at December 17, 2004 12:16 PMI never say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. Well, almost never. As Orwell might have it, they are ready made phrases that have lost their meaning. I cannot say them with the force of sincerity. Plus, I'm sort of a crank.
I do wish people a good holiday, as in have a good holiday, or enjoy your holiday. Because it is a holiday.
Thinking further out, I never refer to Independence Day as the Fourth of July.
Posted by: Bobby Farouk at December 20, 2004 10:23 AMBeen meaning to thank you for that story, TD.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at December 21, 2004 09:47 PM