EDITORIAL: Christmas ban at kindy - where does it end?

Louis Pierard
There's always one. A Napier kindergarten has cancelled Christmas because several families do not observe the Christian festival.
Forget Tussaud's catchpenny waxworks nativity scene starring Posh and Becks. That was designed to make waves. Anyone who rose to the bait was just asking for it.
Christians should at least give themselves credit for being able to take such a confident and robust view of their faith not to resort to a fatwa whenever it is challenged.
But the decision by the Napier kindy is more disturbing. Barmy cultural oversensitivity makes fools of everyone; especially of children who become hostage to a world view that has everyone treading on eggshells out of terror of causing the slightest offence.
It is ironic, then, that this sensitively motivated gesture should prove so offensive. It is also ironic because Christmas has become so secularised that only a wild-eyed extremist would take exception to kids having a Christmas party.
The decision was made because two children out of 60 at the kindy are Jehovah's Witnesses. But there's no more reason to cancel Christmas because two children don't believe in it than there is to insist all must forgo meat because two people are vegetarian.
The decision has the veneer of enlightenment. But whether it is the majority, or the minority, that dictates what everyone else does, the result is still a ruthless kind of conformity.
Kindergarten teachers, who reasonably claimed their role was no less important than that of primary school teachers (sufficient to win them pay parity last month) have an obligation to satisfy the cultural and educational needs of their charges.
It is not an environment for flexing silly prejudices or for perpetuating anxiety.
It is an opportunity, even if the occasion is bereft of the Christian element that inspired it, to teach children to give and to receive and also for teachers to impart a little wisdom about the origins and meaning of Christmas.
The fact that some children do not come from Christian families does not mean all are obliged to deny the existence of Christmas. One imagines that those who made this principled stand will be working all through their Christmas holidays, too.
*Light-fingered
For shame! There is no greater contrast to goodwill that highlights the meanness in some hearts than a theft at Christmas time.
The organisers of the month-long Fiesta of Lights, a Christmas ritual that has grown in the seven years it has become an attraction, have to have round-the-clock patrols to deter light-fingered intruders after $10,000 worth of lights were stolen.
It is interesting to ponder on what the spirit of Christmas must mean to the miscreant who pinched the mermaid sculpture and a 100-metre length of super bright fairy lights display.
Can anyone sink much lower? What do they intend to do with the lights? Set up their own Christmassy display to gladden the hearts of passers-by?
Hopefully, the stolen items might cast a little light into the thieves' miserable lives.