Christmas at Hogwarts (Was Re: Faith Education)

[joywitch_m_curmudgeon]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Kathryn Cawte" <kcawte at n...> 
wrote:
> 
> Ms. Tattersall,
> >
> > What, then, of the students who might not be of either persuasion?
> > I'm not an HP scholar--don't really feel comfortable 
participating on
> > the main list--but JKR has obviously created a WW student 
population
> > that represents the diverse population of the RW. The two students
> > who come to mind are Parvati and Padma Patil, whom I would guess 
to
> > be Indian or Pakistani. How do they feel about the Christmas tree 
if
> > they come from, say, a Hindu culture?
> > >
> 
> Actually I was discussing this with some friends just recently - 
muslim, and
> sikh definitely, possibly hindu as well (can't quite remember who 
was
> there) - they were saying that while they don't celebrate the 
*religious*
> aspects of Christmas they do tend to celebrate it as a holiday with 
presents
> and stuff, or at least those with kids do - after all any excuse for
> presents and when all their school friends are celebratin they tend 
not to
> want to feel left out.

My family is Jewish, and we always celebrated both Christmas and 
Hanukkah.  No one in my family is religious, so we tended to ignore 
the religious aspects of pretty much all holidays, but we always lit 
the menorah and recited the appropriate prayer, and also had a little 
plastic Christmas tree and put presents under it.  Presents from 
grandparents and other friends and relatives were, somewhat 
arbitrarily called either Christmas or Hanukkah presents, and usually 
covered with wrapping paper obviously chosen not for the 
appropriateness of its theme but for its (low) price.

We also celebrated both Easter and Passover, as well as the Jewish 
High Holy days of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashonah.  The way we 
celebrated all those holidays was pretty much the same -- the family 
got together and ate lots of food, and the kids got some presents.  
My grandmother loved to send cards, so I got cards for all those 
holidays, as well as Halloween, Valentines Day, and whatever other 
holidays Grandma happened to have the appropriate card for.

Kind of the best of both worlds, I always thought.

--Joywitch