My parents decided, when I was between the ages of 7-9, that public schoolin' wasn't good enough to be Successful Asian Doctor/Engineer/Lawyer! so they sent me off to Germantown Friends School. After the 4th grade, they realized such a high-priced education would be wasted on me (I mean, I didn't even get into MIT!), and so I went back to public school.
It was a Quaker school, meaning every Thursday, we would spend an hour or two sitting in "meeting". It wasn't church because there was no direct religious messaging going on, and everyone was just supposed to sit silently and reflect. That is unless you had something to share with the whole school, whereby you then stood up and said it.
Around holidays, the meeting would inevitably turn into what was called a "popcorn meeting" because there would be many students and teachers standing up to wish everyone a "Happy Easter!" or "Happy MLK Day!" or "Happy You Don't Have the Clap Day!", often in succession, like popcorn in a pan. One time, our teacher expressly told us not to participate in this kind of activity, because it wasn't very meaningful to the meeting. I don't remember much of anything that I learned in grades 2-4, but I did remember that moment, when the teacher specifically told us that echoing holiday wishes to a public audience wasn't really useful or meaningful.
Anyways...Merry Christmas, Everyone! Happy Hanukkah and Happy Kwanzaa if you so choose! And may the New Year bring you love, happiness, and success!
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