SCHOLA: Finally, A Holiday I Can't Screw Up

Monday, December 27, 2004

Finally, A Holiday I Can't Screw Up

We have had several discussions about whether it is more correct to wish someone a Merry Christmas because it is the most obvious of the winter holidays, and by most obvious I mean screaming in your face obvious, and the one that you may, theoretically, celebrate, or to be safe, in deference to the rest of mankind, to offer a bland, non-denominational Happy Holidays.

Around here, there is not even a chance of hearing the generic holiday greeting. After all, as the twin Interstate billboards insist upon entering our area, "Welcome to Charlotte County. This is George W. Bush Country." Not that all Charlotte County residents are Bush voters, nor are all Bush voters necessarily Christian, no, but in Charlotte County it is assumed that everyone is just like them: White, Christian, Republican. You will get a Merry Christmas whether you like it or not. Respond with a Happy Holidays and you will have blasphemed.

Rather than proselytize, I usually just respond with a big, happy, "You, too."

Now, I am happy to wish you all, without offending anyone, "Happy New Year!"

Oh, wait, I forgot about Rosh Hashanah and Chinese New Year...

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SCHOLA 101

schol' a: 1) An intermission of work, leisure for learning, learned conversation, debate, disputation, lecture, dissertation. 2) A meeting place for teachers and pupils, place for instruction, place of learning, school. 3) The disciples of a teacher, body of followers, school, sect. 4) An acronym for my tortuous blog title "Secular Classical Homeschoolers' Odyssean Learning Adventure." 5) How my Boston cousins pronounce "scholar." 6) Someone who studies at 10 o'clock for a dilla or a dolla.

These are the blatherings of an introverted, autodidactic, champion of The Enlightenment raising three daughters. At one time or another we have homeschooled, public-schooled, Catholic-schooled, cyber-schooled, unschooled, and even threatened boarding school. We have been inspired variously by The Well-Trained Mind, A Thomas Jefferson Education, and Climbing Parnassus, tempered by the writings and wisdom of Charlotte Mason, John Holt, Benjamin Franklin and Michel de Montaigne.

I try not to get wrapped up in labels, but we are secular and we are classical-ish.

We travel. A lot. Sometimes to the other side of the state and sometimes to the other side of the planet. Join us on our journey as we search for our home, navigate the waters of self-education, lounge with the lotus-eaters, and bash a Cyclops or two.