During the last couple of weeks of term I have been teaching R.E. lessons about Christmas in Secondary School to classes in years 7, 9, 10, 11 & 13. It was a lot of fun: there were those members of year 7 who called me Darth Vader (my fault, that one) while everyone else couldn't quite decide whether to call me Joel or Sir; there were the chocolate prizes, highly coveted by some, for giving presentations, winning the Christmas quiz, solving the "Christmas Countdown Conundrum" or spelling syncretism backwards with one's eyes closed (Blogger doesn't think syncretism is a word - Blogger should get a dictionary!)
There was much debate and discussion, too, particularly in year 7, about the true essence (or meaning) of Christmas; there were even those brave souls who impressed me no end by maintaining that for them Christmas is all about Jesus (not a popular opinion among today's youth).
There were some amusing moments for me, like when most of the year 9 GCSE class, and many members of the y11 GCSE group too, revealed that they were very surprised that Jesus was a Jew. If I remember aright, it went something like this:
Reading from Matthew 2: Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?
Pupil 1: King of the Jews?! Why King of the Jews? Was Jesus Jewish??
Me: Yes, Jesus was Jewish
Pupil 2: No way!
Pupil 3: No... Jesus was a Christian... wasn't he?
Me: Neither Jesus nor any of His disciples were "Christians": the term had not been invented yet. In fact, for quite a long time after Jesus was crucified, the Roman authorities considered followers of Jesus to be members of a Jewish sect (I might not have said exactly that)
Pupil 1: OMG! I never knew Jesus was Jewish!
Pupil 4: Jews are cool. I like Jews
Take from that what you will.
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