{"id":7578,"date":"2013-11-19T00:01:31","date_gmt":"2013-11-19T05:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=7578"},"modified":"2013-11-18T17:35:28","modified_gmt":"2013-11-18T22:35:28","slug":"its-the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2013\/11\/its-the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Christmas\"<\/a>This weekend I had at least 50 errands to run. I visited a variety of stores (home improvement, grocery, pet, clothing, furniture, you name it, I was there) and there was one recurring theme throughout. Can you guess what that would be? Yep, you bet, Christmas. At one store, as I waited in line, I listened to the cashier talk to everyone about their Christmas plans and I began to dread my turn in the hot seat.<\/p>\n

You see, I don\u2019t celebrate Christmas and I would bet that I am not the only one in my community who abstains. Christmas is everywhere right now. Decorations, music, scents, advertisements, and conversations abound. For me and my family, it can be a difficult time of year to go out and do things in the world. For the most part, we can ignore the Christmas trappings or enjoy some, like all the lights. But sometimes when people put my family, including the kids (all under 10) on the spot by asking questions about Santa, etc., it is impossible to ignore. At best these conversations are annoying and at worst they are alienating.<\/p>\n

As the Christmas season nears, I implore you to please remember the impression that your library decorations, displays, programs and even chit-chat or salutations make on your community members. Libraries should be welcoming to the entire community, no one who walks through the door should be made to feel uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

Be tasteful, be discreet, and be respectful. Your community is diverse and many people will appreciate an absence of Christmas or Christmas-lite, I promise.<\/p>\n

Photo by the author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend I had at least 50 errands to run. I visited a variety of stores (home improvement, grocery, pet, clothing, furniture, you name it, I was there) and there was one recurring theme throughout. Can you guess what that would be? Yep, you bet, Christmas. At one store, as I waited in line, I listened to the cashier talk to everyone about their Christmas plans and I began to dread my turn in the hot seat. You see, I don\u2019t celebrate Christmas and I would bet that I am not the only one in my community who abstains. Christmas is everywhere right now. Decorations, music, scents, advertisements, and conversations abound. For me and my family, it can be a difficult time of year to go out and do things in the world. For the most part, we can ignore the Christmas trappings or enjoy some, like all the lights….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[122,61,89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-heather-acerro","category-diversity","category-what-i-wasnt-taught-in-library-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}