Tigard isn’t kidding anyone with the title “Holiday Assembly”; the entire assembly was Christmas oriented.

I expected mostly Christmas songs and a token Hanukkah song, but even the theme of the assembly was Christmas. Technically the Grinch “stole” winter break, but most people know him as the Grinch that stole Christmas. Behind the Grinch sat a tree decorated with lights; reminiscent of a Christmas tree.

I guess if the songs weren’t directly religious – mentions of Jesus or anything of the sort – it’d be one thing, but “Silent Night” describes some of the religious meanings of Christmas. Last year’s attempt to be more politically correct was the theme “Chrismahanukwannzaakuh”, so at least they tried to include the other holidays, in a lighthearted manner. But this year? Not at all.

Even the spirit week was centered around Christmas. There wasn’t a “festival of lights” theme where we all dress up as candles or walking around with “kinaras” – the candle holder of the 7 candles lit for Kwanzaa. Instead our spirit days were holiday hats (mostly Santa hats), cozy day, ugly sweaters, and holiday socks.  First, the holiday hats were mainly Santa hats. You don’t see many people walking about with menorahs on their heads. The dress up day for the classes definitely made a Christmas connection because the freshmen dressed up as elves and the juniors dressed up as reindeer. Who has elves and reindeer? Santa. Who is a symbol for Christmas? Santa.

Considering how many people celebrate Christmas and all the connections winter time has with Christmas, it’s not surprising that Christmas comes up. The problem is when the school tries to act like it doesn’t focus on Christmas. Don’t try to tell me that that was a “holiday” assembly. There was only one holiday, thus a Christmas assembly. Yes, technically the school can’t call it that and has to be fair, but this was just a blatant disregard for the other holidays.

It’s not that hard to give a shout-out to Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. The assembly could tell us a little story about the holidays or explain a tradition. Instead the assemblies try to run around the religious aspects – or lack thereof because Kwanzaa isn’t a religious holiday – and do a sloppy job of it.