I drove more than five hours across Oregon's oceanic freeways today to arrive in the comfortable lounge that is my mother's home on Gopher Flats Lane. Here, I'm on vacation until Christmas, when I'll head back to Portland to be on vacation until early January.
This is among the perks of being a college student. I'm in my fifth year, so the routine has become normal. Ten weeks of school, a month off. Ten more weeks of school, two weeks off. Ten more weeks of school, three months off. Repeat.
But what should we call this time off? Break? Winter break? Christmas break?
In the newspaper business, we get some flack from the faith community if we don't refer to the break as "Christmas Break." In my traditional sign-off in our last issue of fall term, I urge the campus readership to "have a great winter break." In past years, the newspaper has received angry and colorful hand-written letters informing us that the break is, in fact, in honor of Jesus Christ.
I readily admit that the structure of the school year in the U.S. is based on the religious and cultural history of our dominant people. That doesn't mean we must name the break after Jesus. And what about the cultural significance of the other breaks? We don't call summer break "harvest break," do we?
And then there's the obvious reason we don't, at least at the paper, call it Christmas Break. Not everyone celebrates Christmas, shock, shock, shock.
I wouldn't be spouting off on the topic if I hadn't been hit with a anti-war-on-Christmas note from one of the paper's copy editors. In an e-mail to the copy desk, I innocently asked that they "have a great winter break." One copy editor who is, ahem, really conservative, chimed back with a decidedly early "Merry Christmas."
Is he a soldier on the side of Christmas in the alleged war perpetrated by liberal God-haters? Maybe he just loves the holidays. Either way, I'm sticking with "winter break." You don't have to believe in God to eat cheeselogs, drink winter ales and sprawl out on the couch in front of Family Griswold.
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of relevance:
"...Neither should religion need the state’s power to enforce its language and theology, which is why the “war against Christmas” discussion is finally so absurd. Does Jesus' message really depend on our being reminded to have a “Merry Christmas” just before we plunge into shopping malls and engage in orgies of holiday consumerism that run so directly contrary to his message? Are Wal-Mart and Target to be seen as critical places of theological and spiritual reflection?"
-Jim Wallis, Sojourner's
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