Following the announcement by the Canadian Human Rights Commission that Christmas is “discriminatory against non-Christians, making Canada a religiously intolerant ‘settler colonial state,’” the Parent Council at one school called an emergency meeting to decide what to do about Christmas.
The school couldn’t ditch Christmas all together because it was still a “must-do” part of the school calendar. Somebody had suggested, therefore, that Christmas could be made more inclusive by changing the name of Christmas so it wasn’t just favouring the Christian view. That sounded like a good idea, so the parents put their heads together to come up with a new name for Christmas.
“How about a name that includes the names of all religions in it?” one parent asked. So they wrote the names of all the religions represented in their neighbourhood on the whiteboard. There were five main groups they knew of: Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Jews. Since Christians were probably still the majority, they all agreed that the new name for Christmas should begin with the first three letters of Christianity: CHR.
After playing around with letters from each of the other religions, one parent yelled, “I know, let’s call it Chrindubuddlimas – CHR for Christians, INDU for Hindus, BUDD for Buddhists, and LIM for Muslims.”
It had a nice ring to it too, they all thought, until the Jewish parent suddenly sat up and said, “But where is the Jewish religion mentioned?”
Oh dear, she was right. It went quiet for a few minutes, but then another parent shouted out, “How about Chruddhamuslindew? It’s got CHR for Christians, UDDH for Buddhists, MUSL for Muslims, IND for Hindus, and EW for Jews.”
And to her surprise there were nods and murmurs of agreement. So they tried attaching “Happy” and “Merry” to it, and shortening it to “Happy Chruddamas” and “Merry Muslindew.” They liked it. It was fully inclusive, culture sensitive, and nice too, because all the children could join in the school’s traditional Christmas festivities but have their own religious name attached to them, making the entire season their own holiday as well.
So on that happy note, the parents ended the meeting with a resounding cry of “Happy Chruddhamuslindew,” and even though only two of the twenty parents pronounced it correctly, it felt like a new wave of peace and goodwill had passed through them.
“But,” one parent suddenly blurted out, “what about the Scientologist, the Mormon family, the three new Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Wiccan lady who’ve just moved into our neighbourhood? How do we include them too?”
“Well, why don’t we write to the Human Rights Commission,” one parent suggested, “and ask them what they think we should do.”
Buck To Basics 