The one they get right!!!

America has become so PC that it borders on the sublime. I understand the ideal of not wanting to rub someone up the wrong way or not wanting to make individuals within an organization or team feel excluded, but seriously, there has to be a limit to how much you pander to people. And it would seem that American education system, or at least the chapter that I am currently part of has lost complete sight of that line. In order that we don’t offend anyone, or lead them to believe that we are not conscious of their religious or cultural differences, the names of the most joyously, and rigorously, celebrated holidays in America have been ‘altered’.

Since I started teaching in the US in September, which feels years ago at this point, I have been fortunate enough to be a part of two traditional holidays. The first was Halloween. However, as the foundations of Halloween apparently have connotations and associations that are considered taboo in certain religious quarters (although the Celts to whom this refers might themselves feel somewhat insulted), we were instructed to refer to this particular occasion as “The Harvest Festival” or, more commonly “The Fall Party” being that the Fall (Autumn for all my South African readers) is the season in which Halloween occurs. However, and here is the ironic part, every second house or apartment, is decorated to the gills with pumpkins, skeletons, cobwebs, jack-o-lanterns, scarecrows and other generally monstrous type adornments. Every restaurant, pub and take away has its windows draped with all manor of orange and black trimmings and every grocery store has whole aisles dedicated to selling the aforementioned ornamentation, as well as islands of chocolates and candy specially wrapped for the occasion, and all of the above is marketed under the very explicit label of "Halloween". On the evening of the 31st of October, the same students, who were encouraged not to use the term "Halloween", dress up as ghouls, ghosts, goblins and many other monstrous creatures and take part in the ‘trick or treating’ tradition. So which message is stronger at the end of the day?

In a similar vein to the PC approach to Halloween, we will not be breaking for Christmas holidays, but rather we will be celebrating the Winter Holidays. Taking into account that the day after Halloween, almost every store had already unpacked its Christmas decorations and repacked the aforementioned aisles with Christmas, sorry, Winter Holiday decorations, I am interested to see how the students react to this particular holiday branding.

However, having had my cynical swipe at the holidays and their related entrapments, there is one holiday that the USA gets 150% right. This particular holiday is Thanksgiving, and were it in my power, I would make it a worldwide holiday. Putting aside the actual history of the day, it is a holiday celebrated with sincerity and generosity of spirit. Family and friends unite to celebrate and give thanks for the things that they have. They sit down to a simple, yet hearty meal in the warmth of their homes and spend more than just a few hours in that old fashioned (and unfortunately somewhat forgotten) cathartic pursuit of conversing and laughing, with, at and next to each other. There are no gaudy decorations, no obligatory gift exchanging and no commercial hype. Just pure appreciation of being able to spend a couple of hours, at the very least, with loved ones. Once the meal is complete, it is traditional to all gather in front of the over sized television and watch some American Football. (The ironic part of this last little chapter in the tradition is that the players playing in the game were unable to partake in the holiday. But then I guess someone has to play in order for the rest to be able to cheer over their full bellies.)

Here’s to Thanksgiving! Cheers!

A Tribute!

Jack, be a gentleman,

Jack, be a rogue,

Jack, is a legend

wherever he goes.

Jack, on the rocks,

Jack, down straight,

Jack, best enjoyed

with a gracious mate.

Autumn

I have just realised why Americans call 'Autumn', 'Fall'. Its got nothing to do with the leaves falling. It's so they don't have to bother trying to remember how to spell 'Autumn'. Seriously though, Loudoun County, Virginia, shares a border with the state of Maryland. Maryland in turn is part of the North East region of the USA. One of the bigger tourist draw cards to this North East region is the change of season from Summer into Fall, when the leaves go through a spectacular colour change. As nature doesn't particularly adhere to political borders and boundaries, I am in the fortunate position of witnessing mother nature's little magic show right in my back yard. The pictures below however, were taken on a walk through a place called Great Falls, which is actually in Maryland. It is also worth mentioning that one of bigger national parks on the east coast of the USA has a 24 hour hotline for the public to call in, in order to find out if the leaves have reached their peak colour change yet. My only question is, who the heck is lying awake in the early hours of the morning wonder if the seasonal leaf colour change is at its peak yet?