What's wrong with "Merry Christmas"?

[Geoff Bannister]

Geoff:
One of the problems of living in the UK is that I often retire to bed at
about midnight and, on checking the HP groups at about 07:15 the 
following morning, I find that a whole flood of messages have come 
in overnight - from my perspective. This morning, about two dozen 
had arrived and I am just finding time in the early afternoon to read 
and digest them.

Magpie:
> I'm afraid I still don't get it. 

> But who are you referring to here? Are you making a comment about 
> what I guess would be just called "bad Christians?" Or "weak Christians?" 
> People you don't think practice their faith correctly--like basically 
> an internal disagreement amongst people of the same church?

Geoff: 
Just in passing, I have to say that I didn't quite get what you were 
referring to in the above paragraph.

Moving on, another problem I find on the HP groups is that they are 
established for people interested in a British author who wrote a book 
about British children in a British environment. But, speaking as a UK 
citizen, I often feel swamped by the large number of group members 
who are from the US and Canada and equate matters in the stories to 
their surroundings. I often see evidence that they perceive what is being 
written or said in the context of their own culture or language and, they 
get hold of the wrong end of the stick. As an aside, I have noticed that 
some fan fiction writers copmmit the most appalling blunders because 
they have not researched UK culture properly.

I have written already that this present discussion points up the differences 
between UK and North American thinking from which springs the 
misunderstanding, and heat and light which has been generated over what
is really a storm in a teacup.

The UK has an official state church unlike the US and, until fairly recently, 
the festivals held by other religions such as Hanukkah or Diwali were not 
well-known outside folk of those faiths and relatively little publicity was 
given to them.

In general, Bank holidays in the UK, either take names relative to the time 
of year - Spring Bank Holiday, May Day Bank Holiday, Late Summer Bank 
Holiday etc. - or are linked to Christian festivals - Eaater Monday, Christmas 
Day etc.

I commented yesterday that the great majority of people in the UK will, if 
asked, claim to be Christian. It is a standing joke - in England at least - that 
when, on entering hospital, you are asked "What is your religion?" and you 
say "I don't know" or something similar, you are automatically marked 
down as "CofE". Many people, again, will turn to the Christian church for 
the christening of babies or the burial of the dead. And especially at 
Christmas, large numbers of poeple will turn out for the special services 
- Carols by Candlelight, Christmas Eve midnight service, Christmas morning 
worship - and will pay nominal lip service to being Christians for just those 
few occasions.

The numbers of people living in the UK who are not Christian has been rising 
steadily over many years. As a result, communities have developed, often in 
larger towns and cities where believers who are, say, Muslim or Hindu have 
come together in specific areas. But, outside these areas, across the length 
and breadth of Britain, the great majority of residents follow the dates of 
Christian festivals, set their holidays by them and many are not familiar with 
the traditions and beliefs of followers of other religions because they just 
haven't met up with them. Even in schools, where teaching about other faiths 
goes on, pupils probably don't share this sort of belief with one another and 
the numbers of adherents in a town may not be large enough for them to 
worship in a dedicated building.

I lived for many years within 3 miles of Brixton in South London, one of the 
largest black communities in Britain where I was a white face lost in a sea of 
black. Over 30 years teaching in the same school, the ethnic school roll rose 
from none to about 25%. Now, my nearest town is 6 miles away and has a 
population of about 10000. The ethnic minority population is less than 1%.

I hope this will help group members who do not live in Great Britain to 
understand why the differences in our approach and attitude compared to 
those, say, in the States occur and where our perspective stems from.