Celebrating the "Holidays" in England

One thing I forgot to mention in between all of my moaning and complaining in my last post was how wonderful and friendly my new co-workers are.  I also forgot to mention that they don't celebrate the holidays here.  They celebrate CHRISTMAS.

I grew up in a very diverse area, at least in terms of ethnicity and religion.  And I went to a very diverse and also a very politically-correct university.  Until I moved south of the Mason-Dixon line, I was used to generic Happy Holidays and Seasons Greetings that wouldn't potentially offend people or make them uncomfortable if they weren't Christian.  All celebrations and decorations were carefully crafted to be inclusive and respectful of all world religions.  Living in the south was the first time things bent more strongly towards Christmas, but even at work, people were always sure to include the other holidays, too.  From what I've seen here in the north of England, that is not the case at all.  There is no mention of any other religion or any other holiday.  I haven't seen a single menorah or any symbols of Kwanzaa.  It's the Christmas season, and everyone is celebrating Christmas.

I'm not passing any judgement on right or wrong, worse or better; it's just a difference, and to me, it's a very noticeable one.  I got to thinking about it, and pondering on it, so I looked up some demographics.  The area where my plant is located is ~96% white British.  As far as I can tell, with a few Welsh exceptions, just about everyone is English.  In the area, 75% identify themselves as Christian, and 19% claim no religion, but it's probably a safe bet that most of the No Religion people were raised with Christian traditions even if they don't "practice" today.  Representation of any other religion is negligible.  More people refuse to answer the question than identify themselves as any other religion.  When you think about how relatively homogeneous everyone is, having everyone celebrate Christmas together makes a lot more sense.

Everyone in the office area where I work collaborates to put up a ton of fun Christmas decorations.  It makes the office area look wonderfully festive.  Of course, there's the enormous stash of goodies and sweets that everyone shares.  Whenever you're craving sugar, there is some kind of chocolate or a mince tart to be had.  I've also been introduced to Mr. Kipling's exceedingly good treats.  Mr Kipling seems to be sort of like a British version of Little Debbie snack cakes, only much, much better.

One thing I was not prepared for was the giving of Christmas cards to each other.  My co-workers kindly included me in their Christmas card giving, even though I was brand new.  This practice caught me by surprise, because I don't think I've experienced that kind of card giving since we used to hand out Valentines to classmates back in secondary school.  I was caught flat-footed by receiving cards, but a little birdie told me that a charitable donation was a socially acceptable alternative, so I made a Christmas donation to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) on behalf of my team members, since we are all animal lovers.

Each department or team also gets to have its own special Christmas Dinner together in the canteen.  The canteen staff pull out all the stops to do a full 4-course turkey dinner, served at the table, complete with Christmas Crackers to share.  My new co-workers had thoughtfully made sure to include me in the headcount for our team, so I was able to join in the fun.  I failed at pulling the cracker properly, so our cracker didn't make a snap, but I won the side that had the little toy prize in it, and I was a good sport about putting the paper crown on my head.

Since I work in the Procurement/Supply Chain department, many of the suppliers send in Christmas gifts.  All of the gifts are shared and doled out fairly so that everyone gets something.  I got a handy utility knife, screwdriver, measuring stick (all with a supplier's logo on it) and a nice bottle of red wine, a 2009 Casa Luis Reserva Cariñena from Spain.

The people that I work with have all been nicer to and more generous with me than I deserve, and celebrating the run up to Christmas with them has really helped balance out some of the other, stressful stuff.

(My desk with Christmas cards from new co-workers and a tin of delicious gingersnap wafers from a supplier.)

By the way, I shared this video with my co-workers explaining British Christmas to Americans.  They all laughed and agreed that it was totally accurate, even down to serving Brussels sprouts with Christmas dinner even though most everyone hates them.