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Pumpkins, Turkeys and Reindeer: Celebrating Holidays in The Classroom
By Robin Byster

What comes to mind when you think back to your early childhood about Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and the winter holidays? For many of us, there are fond memories of costume parades, art projects of turkey shapes and pilgrim hats (that all looked the same), and perhaps even a visit to your school by Santa Claus. We may smile and remember how exciting it was. For others, it was a time of fear (scary Halloween masks and being too shy to parade in front of strangers) and isolation ("I am the only one who doesn’t believe or celebrate. I must be strange.") or even feelings of loneliness ("No one shares or ac-knowledges my traditions."). What others were celebrating in school and what the teacher was teaching was not what we did at home.

Since the early 1980s, many early childhood teachers have been re-thinking how we celebrate holidays with young children and discussing the implications of going from one holiday theme to the next as the guiding force in their curriculum planning. Unfortunately, the companies that design curriculum materials for teachers (bulletin board cutouts, worksheets, ideas for songs and art projects) encourage this by selling numerous items to facilitate this process. Greeting card manufacturers also participate in the "holiday craze," putting out displays sometimes three months prior to the holiday’s actual date!

Every School Does It Differently

In some schools, teachers have re-examined how holiday times will be handled. There are no two schools that handle this issue the same way, which is appropriate as no two schools are alike in the families they serve or in the teachers who work there. Discussions about how to celebrate holidays can be heated, depending on how strongly adults feel about celebrations in general and what it might mean to them personally. It helps to ask the question: Why are we doing this? Is it for the benefit of the children or mostly for the adults? Other questions to think about include: How do we handle family differences without making one seem better or more important than another? How do we introduce cultures in an historically accurate way? How do we teach another culture or religion that we are unfamiliar with so that it will not be misinterpreted? There is no one right way to answer these questions.

Some early childhood programs have decided to use the seasons as a theme and leave the celebration of holiday traditions for the home. For example, autumn suggests studying its many smells, tastes, colors and textures, as well as the things we’re thankful for. In wintertime, classes might celebrate underlying values that all cultures find meaningful, such as caring for one another and sharing. These are concepts that fit right in to the development of the whole child. Whatever the decision is, it needs to be a thoughtful one, one that is constantly evolving and is always being evaluated, just like any other aspect of the curriculum.

Developmental Issues Are Important

There are also some developmental issues that make "teaching" holidays in the traditional way inappropriate for very young children. First, there is the issue of time as a concept. Most children struggle with understanding what time of day their parents pick them up or what it means that they will go see their grandparents "this weekend." Understanding what will happen in three months or that we are celebrating something that occurred 200 years ago is beyond their comprehension. Second, children in this stage of development are primarily learning about themselves--their feelings, their families, their interactions with others, their creativity--as well as constructing knowledge about how things work. Spending a great deal of time celebrating events or rituals that are not a part of their intimate world is often not meaningful to young children. One school has chosen to celebrate a variety of "life events" throughout the year, such as: a party when a new sibling is born or when a child grows taller. They also have different everyday themes such as "beach party in the winter," "pajama day," or "backward day."

Today’s Diverse Society

Louise Derman-Sparks’ book Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children, discusses the responsibility of teachers to create experiences that are meaningful and sensitive to all genders, races and cultures. She states: "If children are to grow up with the attitudes, knowledge and skills necessary for effective living in a complex, diverse world, early childhood programs must actively change the impact of bias on children’s development." Is teaching holidays a way for children to learn about other cultures? Derman-Sparks points out that if holidays, with their traditions, foods and activities, are the only thing we teach children about other cultures, we aren’t really communicating a true picture of that culture. The ideal is to incorporate aspects of those other cultures throughout the day and the year, not just on one holiday.

Parents of young children can facilitate a positive approach to learning about others by examining their own understanding and knowledge of different cultures. Checking out books from the library, opening discussions and having shared experiences with others helps us learn and translate that knowledge to our children. Being an active participant in your child’s classroom (spending time reading a story, doing a special cooking activity, talking with the teachers) would also be a way for you to share your family’s traditions in a meaningful way to children. Thoughtful parents and teachers will continue to examine the appropriateness of holiday activities and the messages we send when we choose to do celebrations in the classrooms. We hope to discover the best way to celebrate holidays with young children, keeping in mind their developmental needs and the growing diversity of the larger society.