Easter...and what about the other guys?

"Happy Easter!" I heard someone call out to his co-worker.

I thought, "I don't think he celebrates Easter. Hm...maybe the other guy does."

I asked my students on Thursday to write a journal entry about what Easter means to them. Most of them wrote about Easter egg hunts and chocolate and spending time with family. Some of them wrote about Jesus dying on the cross. A couple of them wondered why Good Friday is "Good".

Excerpts from one kid's writing:

Easter means pretty much nothing to me...
...Easter means skipping school...
...I don't celebrate Easter because I'm Chinese and my parents are Chinese so they don't celebrate. Since we don't celebrate we buy some chocolate...
...In the end I feel that Easter is nothing to me.

I guess it's funny how we have these holidays on our calendars still, rooted in British tradition. After all, it's the Aboriginals, French, and British who started Canada. But what about now, now that Canada's population has changed?

Why can't Chinese New Year be a stat holiday? And Hanukkah? And Deewali?

I think we should incorporate the holidays that people celebrate into the next census questionnaire, and then change all the stat holidays. Or would that be a referendum question?