As an Albion student routinely exposed to the variety and freedom provided by a liberal-arts education, I have been encouraged to be an open-minded individual. In fact, it is required to sample various subjects to fulfill mandatory modes and categories for graduation. This certainly affects my worldly, cultural, and political views and with winter break fast-approaching, ‘tis the season for just as many questions about the political correctness of seasonal greetings as there are reasons to celebrate.

Christmas particularly is getting put out in the cold. Since America was originally founded as a Christian nation, this seems a little ridiculous. It saddens me to go to the grocery store, decorated years past with red and green, Santa and reindeer, and instead be greeted with the frigidity of decorative snowflakes and winter scenes and "holiday trees," as non-offensive as they are uninteresting. But I am willing to see less Christmas trimmings in stores under one condition: that the reason is to accommodate more decorations of other cultural origins, such as menorahs for Hanukkah or traditional Kwanza banners.

America, after all, is a mosaic, or at least is defined as a melting pot. In an effort to make sure no one is offended, it seems we have unfortunately taken all the spice out of the soup. Surely no one would take offense if all the cultural holidays were represented, and it would be plenty more interesting to have more reasons to celebrate instead of less.

Public school systems across the nation have adopted policies that make it taboo to call parties "Christmas parties," making celebrations general in an attempt to make sure no one is left out. But I think that exposing children at a young age to different cultures and winter celebrations is a much more productive step towards creating informed and open-minded young adults who are accepting of other traditions. Perhaps all the different cultural holidays should be included on holiday trees instead of none at all.

True, it is always safe to be politically correct, and in many cases it is the right way to act. To do otherwise can often be insensitive. But during the holidays, being too uptight just seems to take the fun out of it.

As long as we acknowledge that different people have different beliefs, and that these beliefs should be respected equally, then there certainly seems to be better ways of spending vacation than dissecting a greeting card or fighting to remove a tree or nativity scene.

Admittedly, someone could always find a loophole when all the holidays are tried to be incorporated instead of none. For every religious symbol adorning a decoration, there need to be as many without. People will always argue that the different holidays are unequally represented, but during the holiday season is it really necessary to act like Scrooge?

It was just last year that the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport reconsidered their political correctness during the holidays. The debate ensued over whether the coniferous trees that adorned the terminals were Christmas or holiday trees, and finally many were simply removed after Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky requested that a Jewish chanukkiyah be installed in addition. Even though the trees were eventually reinstalled, national media gave coverage to an idea that was impossible to ignore: it may be easier to just become more politically correct during the holidays, remove the trees, Christmas ones or the holiday variety, but one wonders whether or not it removes much of the festivity of the season.

A lot has changed since how I remember the holidays being celebrated as a child. In elementary school, the highlight preceding time off from school was, without a doubt, the much-anticipated visit from Santa Claus, who would lead us in the tradition of singing Christmas carols. Now, these Santa visits may be in jeopardy. Frankly, children now are being deprived of the holiday magic our generation felt so purely, and took for granted would never cease to be.