Kwistmas

If you've been reading the news in the last few days, you might have noticed a short piece about Pipers Vale Primary School, which has banned any mention of Christmas until two weeks before the holiday. This has prompted letters to the press varying in the opinion spectrum from "Shocking, Christmas time for kids, blah blah blah" to the "Hurrah, it's about time" positions. In many ways it's easy to see where the headmistress is coming from - apparently kids so anticipate Christmas that thanks to the amount of tartrazine and sugar in their diets there have been several cases of spontaneous human combustion caused by a build up of excitement at the coming holiday.

Most people, irrespective of religious views, celebrate something at this time of year. Some religions have got lucky and have festivals which happen at the same sort of time and can easily be Shanghaied into an appropriately festive form, like Hannukah. Other people just make something up and stick tinsel on it, like Kwanzaa* or Winterval (ugh).

So, what are your thoughts on Christmas and how it is celebrated?

[Poll #624101]

^{*Kwanzaa is not a real festival. No self-respecting religion would have a festival that shared a spelling scheme with Kwik-Save.}