In my program, we don't decorate for/host any of the holiday parties. Instead, we invite families at the beginning of the year to come in and share important family/cultural celebrations with us. As a non-religious person, this feels a lot more authentic to me. We've had families bring in nativity sets for children to play with during Christmas, or come to school dressed up for Diwali and share coloring pages. One family cooked latkes for the class during Hanukkah (yum!). Some families donate books about important holidays and traditions for them.

It's more special for the children this way and a great way for families to share important parts of their home culture at school.The program is able to remain "neutral" as someone else said while not trying to erase these important celebrations. It's also a lot less work for us to have the families take the lead! This is all written about in our handbook as well.

Reply