Each day your children come to Brightling, they experience cultural diversity in their classrooms. But to them it isn’t “diversity,” it’s just “friends.”
And what a gift that is!
Between our staff and the children we care for, Brightling Childcare Academy welcomes people with origins all over the world. And that means Brightling families celebrate the holidays in many different ways, according to their own religious and cultural traditions.
While Christmas is the most-celebrated holiday among Brightling families, we focus less on the specifics of the holiday and more on the themes we find among all the major winter celebrations.
Whether we’re Christian, or Jewish, or Hindu, or Muslim, or whether our tradition comes from African-American or indigenous culture, our cultural and religious celebrations in December highlight:
- family and community
- history and tradition
- sharing with and giving to others
- reflection and gratitude
In a word, love.
Every major cultural and religious celebration has its traditional shared meals and special foods, and its ways of expressing thanks and love – as well as its reminders to show kindness to others. This is the part we really focus on at Brightling, and our wonderfully diverse community helps us do that. At our Centre, we celebrate these fundamental elements every culture celebrates.
If you’d like to learn more about some of the holiday celebrations celebrated in our Brightling community, there are all kinds of great resources online, including short “explainer” videos you can find on YouTube about Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Indigenous holiday celebrations. While it’s difficult to live in most of Canada without being aware of Christmas, here’s a video that explains how some popular Christmas traditions began – and how many are incorporations of other cultures’ winter festivals.
Happy holidays, however you celebrate!