Diversity forbidden?
To the editor:
As a Buddhist with a son who thinks for himself, I was very saddened to hear about the decision somewhere in the Hopewell Valley schools to eliminate all religious and secular references to either Christmas or Hanukkah while permitting celebration of "winter."
Christmas is good. The ironies in this are just too much. Just how, beyond the "saint" buried in the history of "Santa," is Santa Claus Christian? Many Christians call him a symbol of commercialization and disavow the connection. He’s been sanitized from a Germanic figure of chastisement, successfully making a cultural translation into a mysterious giver, even further removed from the Greek Orthodox Saint Nikklaus, who is the speculative beginning of it.
Hanukkah is a celebration of light, its return after the diminishing days of autumn, much like Dewali and the Christmas tree, which tree is, as most of us know, older than Christianity and a celebration of both light and hope that we’ll last through the winter.
Jesus Christ said he was "the way, the truth and the light" and he was born just around winter solstice, so not much of a stretch then to say that all these celebrations are, or could be, of light. If so, we’re stripping the year of the beauty of symbols, leaving it bare, not to mention our minds darkened.
That’s the core of it. We all live together here and I don’t see how it helps us "make it through the winter" to close ourselves off to each other’s cultural heritage and go stone-faced with fear of being with each other.
We can’t honor and teach respect by forbidding diversity. Why not have any symbol any family in the district would like to volunteer to display and teach instead? It might be fun.
Bill Piper
Hopewell Township
Just stay home
To the editor:
I was depressed and somewhat saddened by the article "Unsupervised parties are target of new effort" (Dec. 14). It points out that the parents in our community are so distant from their teenage children and distrust them so much that they want the option of having the police check up on them while they are out of town.
They seem to distrust the efficacy of their own moral authority and are willing to rely on the uniformed and judicial threat of police supervision to make up for what they have not provided. It also suggests (and this is the really depressing part) that these parents suffer from a remarkable sense of entitlement. They seem to feel that they are entitled to go away for a weekend even if they have raised children who are not to be trusted when left alone. I am not in favor of parties where teens drink and take drugs. I also understand that some teens will be unable to resist temptation when it comes knocking on the unsupervised door bearing a six pack or two or worse.
It seems to me, however, that the parents of such children should probably stay home. Where is it written that parents are entitled to leave behind children who cannot take care of themselves? If you think your children will not behave if you are not there, you shouldn’t leave. If you think they can take care of themselves, go ahead and enjoy the skiing. And if you’re not sure, you probably should stay home, too.
Maybe I am just getting old and cranky (well, no maybe there). Maybe I just didn’t get the memo that pointed out that if you pay the kind of property taxes we pay, you don’t have to be fully responsible for the behavior of your children. But I hope, at any rate, that any parents of teens tempted to contact the police before they go away for the weekend, will also be tempted to reconsider their weekend plans.
Thomas Van Essen
Hopewell
Let’s teach
acceptance, tolerance
To the editor:
I’m a sophomore at Hopewell Valley Central High School and attended Bear Tavern Elementary School. I heard that Bear Tavern School is not celebrating any holidays this year and that the word holiday has been replaced with "winter." I was sad to hear my brother (who is at Bear Tavern) will not be able to share the same traditions that I did as a child.
I think the best way to learn and accept other religions is to experience them. When I was a freshman I learned about the Muslim culture and their religion. This year one of my classmates is partaking in the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Learning about religion from a book and hearing about it from someone who is actually practicing it is a big difference. Learning about other religions is the best way to gain tolerance and acceptance towards others, and what better time of year to build acceptance than the "most wonderful time of the year." Isn’t it better to include everyone than to pretend they don’t exist? The holidays are about loving the people around you and embracing everything they have to offer, including differences of things like religion. I hope Bear Tavern will reconsider their decision.
Kelsey Bruno
Hopewell Township
Forsake the letter
of the law
To the editor:
As a parent of a child in one of our elementary schools, I was distraught to receive a list of "Guidelines" regarding the "December Holidays." Listed in these "Guidelines" were the following items that needed to be addressed:
1) All December parties need to be winter celebrations and not celebrations of holidays.
2) All holiday decorations should be changed in favor of winter decorations. Santa Claus, Christmas trees, and Menorahs are all holiday-specific decorations.
3) The holiday sing-along will be discontinued as it has been at other schools.
4) Films shown on the last day before break should not be about the holidays and should be curriculum-related.
All this in the name of being "legally correct"!?
At the risk of being legally or politically incorrect, I share the following with the Hopewell Valley community by superimposing my thoughts and words into one of the most famous editorials ever written by a veteran editor of the "The New York Sun," Francis P. Church in 1897:
Yes, Virginia, there is a holiday party at school:
Dear Editor:
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah in our school anymore. Papa says, "If you see it in The Hopewell Valley News or the Hopewell Valley School District Web site, it’s so. Please tell me the truth, is there going to be any holiday celebration in our school anymore?
Virginia B. Hopeful
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected and influenced by our society’s overbearing necessity to be politically correct to a fault and live by the letter of the law but not by the ABCs of common sense. They do not believe except they hear that more restrictions have once again taken over and we must adhere to a new set of "Guidelines." They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or women’s or children’s or school board members’ or attorneys’, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence (or lack thereof) capable of grasping the whole truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, we can celebrate the holidays of December in your schools including Christmas, the first day of winter, Hanukkah, Report Card Day and Breakfast for Lunch Day. They exist as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life and the lives of your friends its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Christmas or Hanukkah celebrations allowed in your elementary school! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight and a holiday celebration in which only snowflakes or snowpersons were allowed. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in having Christmas parties in elementary school! You might as well not believe in the Halloween parade or Valentine’s Day cupcakes. Not believe in lighting the candles of a Menorah! You might as well not believe in the spirit created when the circus fills your gymnasium or the anticipation of wearing red, white or blue on Field Day. You might as well not sell wrapping paper that covers the gifts that our families exchange on Christmas and Hanukkah. Not believe in having the children learn about the traditions of their classmates in elementary school! You might as well not let them learn the beautiful notes they sing and play on their instruments as they share their talents at the annual holiday concert. You might get your school board attorney to hire men to watch all the classrooms in all the schools to catch the children and their teachers and their moms and dads decorating a Christmas tree or making a paper garland or lighting a menorah or decorating a gingerbread house with red and green candies, but even if you did catch them partaking in some of the joys and traditions that have been a part of our school and community for decades, what harm has been done?
You tear apart our children’s and our country’s traditions to accomplish what? So Hopewell Valley school’s can be deemed the most legally or politically correct? Only faith, poetry, love, romance and the joy we see in our children’s eyes when they are allowed to celebrate our traditions can push aside that curtain of following the letter of the law and we can then view and picture the beauty and glory and camaraderie and team spirit and our ability to learn and understand the celebrations of our classmates and our neighbors that will perpetuate our sense of community. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanza or any other observances of traditional holidays in elementary school! Thank the school board’s common sense that they will let them live and live forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, they will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Yes, we must continue to share our traditions and beliefs and our values with each other. We must forsake the letter of the law and turn to our better judgment so our children can continue to honor and understand the celebrations of others. The lessons learned and the times our children share with their classmates, teachers and families are the very essence of the fabric of our society. If the threads are allowed to be pulled from this fabric little by little, strand by strand, what then will be left to be politically correct about?
I am asking all parents who are as distraught and unnerved about this as I am to voice their opinions so our children can continue to share in all the joyous occasions, holiday parties, Thanksgiving celebrations, Easter egg hunts, and learn the words to traditional songs and make holiday decorations to give their loved ones as we did when we were children. Please restore what is instrumental in creating an environment of tolerance, joy, love and understanding to our children. If it’s necessary to accomplish this by providing for it in the curriculum, then let’s provide it in the form of adding a multicultural celebrations unit of study to the elementary school curriculum.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, a Joyous Kwanza and a hearty apology to anyone who is offended by this letter!
Judy Niederer
Titusville
Christmas calls
To the editor:
I would like to acknowledge the Merrill Lynch employees who hosted "Christmas Calls" last Saturday for Hopewell Valley seniors. Employees of Merrill Lynch invited seniors to their Hopewell Township office to make phone calls to friends and families anywhere in the world. Employees gave their time over the weekend to assist with phone calls and serve refreshments.
In a season in which we often become focused on material gifts, Merrill Lynch employees gave Hopewell Valley seniors the precious gift of connecting with loved ones far away. Thank you to all the employees who took part in making this a special event for area seniors.
Abigail Waugh
Hopewell Valley
Senior Services coordinator

