The December holiday season can be a time when people of different backgrounds come together and share traditions. While the majority of people in the USA celebrated Christmas, there are large numbers of people who are not Christian who don’t celebrate Christmas.

i’m one of those people. I’m Jewish but I’m part of an interfaith, intercultural family, so I get invited and attend Christmas, Kwanzaa and other cultural celebrations. I also have a big Chanukah party at my house every year and invite family and friends
who aren’t Jewish. In fact, my non-Jewish friends are the first people to call me to find out what day I’m having the Chanukah party so they can put it in their calendars. Last year, the potato latkes were made by a White Episcopalian, an African-American Baptist and me. I helped decorate the Christmas tree at the house of a Christian family member and get ready for the party.

I’ve spent Christmas with family from Mexico and helped make tamales as well as eat them. I love learning and sharing traditions all year.

When I’ve written about this in the past, several groups have said that i was trying to take god out of Christmas, and was part of the “secular war against Christmas and religion”. My point in all of this is that if we are in the spirit of the holidays we want to be inclusive, particularly in the workplace. i said that there are diffrerences in what we do in the workplace and what we do in our personal life. This means that if we want everyone to be comfortable and attend festivities at work then we need to have either holiday or New Years Parties instead of having Christmas parties. This way we can all celebrate together, rather than just celebrate one religion. More people will attend and participate in planning. Trying to be inclusive and celebrating the diversity of our country is not just a move to be what some people call “politically correct. (a label that I find very irritating), but it is a way of spreading the joy.

If you would like to read more about diversity and inclusion during the holidays, I invite you to go to my website www.simmalieberman.com and read articles I’ve written about the subject or go to
http://www.simmalieberman.com/dec_2005.htm to read one of my newsletters about it.