Christmas in Canada is a tradition worth defending
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Well, they’re at it again. A year after a Canadian Human Rights Commission position paper labelled Christmas “discriminatory” and an example of “colonialist religious intolerance,” an Alberta public school has cancelled its winter concert for not being inclusive enough.
The principal of Whitecourt’s Pat Hardy Elementary explained, “Not all students celebrate Christmas, and their families may or may not choose to have them participate in the Christmas concert. Other families celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday but do not want children engaging in the non-religious parts such as Santa, Christmas trees, etc.” A spring concert was suggested instead – presumably because no one gets too worked up about the vernal equinox.
This isn’t exactly news. For years, schools and public officials have avoided or rebranded anything tied to the Nativity. “Christmas concerts” are cancelled or renamed. Christmas trees become “Holiday Trees,” “Care Trees,” “Multicultural Trees,” “Winter Solstice Trees,” or, in one particularly absurd case, a “Festive Bush.”
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It doesn’t stop there. Activists in Saskatoon objected to city buses displaying “Merry Christmas.” A Toronto judge ordered a Christmas tree removed from a courthouse lobby in case it made non-Christians feel unwelcome. Inspired by an American school that rewrote Silent Night as “Silent night, mmm, mmm, mmm, / All is calm, all is bright, mmm, mmm, mmm,” a principal in Ottawa removed the C-word entirely from Silver Bells: “Ring-a-ling, hear them sing; Soon it will be a festive day.”
There are several ways to address this perennial issue. One approach is to remove religion from the public square altogether, which would suit the secular fundamentalists just fine. Another is to play the numbers game and insist that, since Christians still form a majority in Canada, their traditions should hold sway. Others advocate for stripping Christianity from the holiday while cramming every other religious holy day into the school calendar.
But there’s a simpler, better solution: take the same approach leaders of racial and religious minorities in Canada do when asked if Christmas offends them. Their answer is almost always the same: of course not; Christmas is an integral part of Canadian culture.
Christmas has been Canadian for centuries – longer than poutine, mediocre socialized health care, or the last time the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup. It’s as native to our culture as Hockey Night in Canada, Stompin’ Tom Connors, or pineapple on pizza.
The Vikings who landed in Newfoundland a thousand years ago likely celebrated Christmas, and European settlers have observed it for over 500 years.
Over time, Canada has built its own Christmas traditions. We gave the world D’où Viens-Tu Bergère? and the Huron Carol – the first carol written in a North American Indigenous language. J.P. Clarke’s A Canadian Christmas Carol dates back to 1853. More recently, Canadians have added River by Joni Mitchell, Bob and Doug Mackenzie’s Twelve Days of Christmas, and Johnny Bower’s immortal Honky the Christmas Goose (sung by the last Leafs goalie to win a Stanley Cup).
We also have unique Christmas foods: the taffy pulls of St. Catherine’s Day, the tourtière of the réveillon, cipâte, butter tarts, Nanaimo bars, barley toys, and the inexplicably named “chicken bones” candy.
Canada made its mark in Christmas history, too. The first Christmas tree in North America was lit here in 1781, thanks to Baroness Frederika von Riedesel, whose husband brought German troops to protect Canada from American invasion. The first department store Santa appeared in Fredericton in 1869. Canada issued the world’s first Christmas stamp in 1898, and Eaton’s staged the first Santa Claus Parade in Toronto in 1905.
And only in Canada will you find Christmas traditions like mummers disguised as Janneys, Ownshooks, Fools, Belsnicklers, and Naluyuks. Or door-to-door canvassers singing la guignolée, a tune that somehow manages to threaten to “torture the oldest daughter of the house” if donations aren’t forthcoming.
So the next time someone objects to Christmas in the public square, remember this: it’s not just a religious holiday. It’s a centuries-old Canadian tradition, sanctified by time and universal practice. It’s as much a part of our culture as the red maple leaf, a tradition that unites us rather than divides us.
It’s what we do. Canadians do Christmas.
Gerry Bowler is a Canadian historian and a senior fellow of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
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