Many regions of the world where Christianity has been the dominant religion for hundreds of years, including in Europe and North America, have recently experienced growth in other faiths, due in a large part to immigration. At the same time, there have been efforts in some countries to remove Christian symbols and writings on government buildings and other public institutions.
In many areas, one offshoot of all this cultural and political change has been the recent controversial practice of removing references to the word “Christmas” in favor of “holidays” during the traditional holiday period at the end of the calendar year. In some places, “Happy Holidays” has replaced the phrase “Merry Christmas” as the go-to greeting in the month of December.
 For some parks and attractions, this situation creates a real dilemma—whether to risk offending non-Christians with the use of the word “Christmas” and its associated icons, symbols, decorations, and music, or risk offending Christians by not continuing with their traditional use. The stakes are high because the December holiday season has become a major revenue earner for many attractions. For instance, Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark (www.tivoligardens.com), reports 25 percent of its annual attendance occurs during just the month of December, and Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri (www.silverdollarcity.com), says Christmas is its fastest-growing time of year.
Secular Celebrations
 Though Tivoli avoids religious connotations in its Christmastime celebration, park spokesman Simon Verheij says it’s really not a conscious preplanned strategy, but rather a natural reflection of Danish culture. “We have to face it that Denmark is not that kind of religious country,” he says. “It’s not that we just sat down and made some kind of a strategy— it’s happened as a part of the normal development in our society.”
Of all the elements that determine how attractions approach the Christmas issue, this seems to be the overriding determining factor—the evolution of both the demographic makeup and political climate of the area in which the park, zoo, aquarium, museum, or FEC is located.
Though Tivoli still calls its holiday celebration “Christmas at Tivoli,” Verheij notes the park has made changes. “We once had a whole scenery with Jesus on a large scale [a nativity],” he says, “but we don’t have that anymore. We try not to involve anything religious.”
The park decorates some 1,200 trees with 5 million lights, following a plan choreographed by Tiffany & Company Design Director John Loring. Other decorations include a generous use of flowers, but Verheij says no representations of Jesus Christ, angels, or anything else overtly religious are used. He also notes that though the park participates in the Lucia Choir celebration on Dec. 13, which happens all over Scandinavia, he doesn’t believe the particular choir that performs at Tivoli sings songs that are very religious.
The Oakland Zoo in California (www.oaklandzoo.org) pulls guests from Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley, and the surrounding area, a region known for having a culturally diverse population. So, the zoo doesn’t use the term “Christmas” in the names of its holiday events.
 “We stay rather neutral,” says Nancy Filippi, managing director of operations and marketing for the zoo. “We have a light festival called ‘ZooLights’ and a breakfast with Santa event called ‘Paws and Claus.’”
Zoo officials consciously chose to have no elements of Christian religion in their events, and thus the decorations on their Christmas tree and the ornaments sold in their gift shops are secular in nature. Their other park decorations are done through a partnership with Coca-Cola and, again, there are no religious themes or associations. The zoo works with a local radio station in putting together the music for “Zoo- Lights” and describes it as “nonreligious pop holiday music.”
According to the zoo, the decision not to have any religious overtones in the holiday events is made with fairness to the guests. Filippi reports she’s never had any complaints about “ZooLights” or “Paws and Claus.”
Sticking with Tradition
In the case of Branson, Missouri’s Silver Dollar City, the park’s location also determines its approach to the Christmas season, just with a different result. “We are in America’s heartland, in the middle of the country,” observes Lisa Rau, the park’s public relations director, “and we proudly celebrate Christmas and call it Christmas.” The park’s holiday event is named “An Old Time Christmas” and runs from early November until the end of December.
Silver Dollar City is not subtle in its Christmas celebrations. Entertainment and decorations for the event include a “Christmas On Main Street” sight-and-sound show on the park’s main square, 1,000 decorated Christmas trees, a Broadway-style production of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” and 4 million lights throughout the park. The centerpiece of the celebration is a five-story Christmas tree with 350,000 lights. One of Silver Dollar City’s Christmas displays is a “living” nativity featuring live actors and performers. Also, the park has a “Wilderness Church” where guests can sing Christmas carols and worship.
 “We sing traditional Christmas carols and talk about the birth of Jesus Christ,” says Rau. “But we welcome people of all faiths and ethnicities. Guests are welcome to go to the nativity or to the church, but there’s absolutely nothing that mandates they must do so or must believe in certain things.”
As for any decision-making process regarding how far to take the religious aspect of the celebration, Rau makes it clear there is none. “We don’t make any such judgment calls on the birth of Jesus,” she says. “We don’t censor Christmas.”
As for guest response, Rau says the park has caught no flack for the manner in which it conducts “An Old Time Christmas” and, in fact, she says it’s received “tremendous” public support. “You can choose to come or not, and if you’re not [pleased], we have a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee that you’ll get your money back.”
Taking the Middle Path
For Ocean Park Hong Kong (www.oceanpark.com.hk), the celebration of the Christmas holiday must balance years of colonial tradition with a new reality. For 155 years, Hong Kong was a colony of Great Britain, until Britain ceded the city back to China in 1997. Now Hong Kong is part of a country where Buddhism is the dominant religion, yet while under British control, the region’s Christian followers grew greatly and now number about 500,000.
As a result, Ocean Park takes a measured approach to its Christmas celebration. The park does use the word “Christmas,” holding a festival each December called “Ocean Park Christmas Sensation” that includes a “Laser Christmas Wishing Wall,” where guests create personalized Christmas wishes in the form of laser graffiti, and a “Santa Illusion Adventure” attraction featuring Santa Claus. Also, park retail shops carry more than 100 Christmas-themed mementos.
Christmas decorations adorn the park, and a “Glittering Christmas Garden” features more than 50 Christmas trees. But the decorations, attractions, and theming are decidedly nonreligious. “We do have Christmas trees among other festive decorations throughout the park but do not put an emphasis on any specific religion,” says a park official who requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of this subject. “We don’t emphasize the element of religion in our attractions, as we’re a park made for all guests.”
The Wildlife World Zoo and Aquarium in Litchfield, Arizona (www.wildlifeworld.com), held a December holiday event for 13 years called “Wild Winter Nights” that featured lighted Christmas trees, 45 sequence-lighted animal displays, appearances by Santa Claus, and Christmas music.
The zoo discontinued the event two years ago, but in this case it wasn’t because of anything related to religion or complaints about the event from guests.
Mickey Ollson, the facility's director, notes he doesn’t recall ever getting a complaint about any religious connotations of “Wild Winter Nights”; however, since discontinuing the event, he’s gotten comments from families who miss the spectacle because admission was previously included as a part of the family membership package.
The facility still has lighted trees on the grounds and one 20-foot-tall tree it puts up for the holidays, but the word “Christmas” is not promoted. Ollson states these decisions were made jointly by himself, his deputy director, and his public relations representative. “We didn’t do any Christian nativity scenes or anything like that,” he says. “We didn’t want to go there politically, so we pretty much kept it nonreligious.” Contact News Editor Keith Miller at kmiller@IAAPA.org.
Walking a Holiday Tightrope
New York City FEC Madd Fun is in the middle of a true melting pot
One man whose amusement operation definitely faces religious and cultural challenges when celebrating the Christmas holiday season is Harry Haynes, co-owner of Madd Fun in Brooklyn, New York (www.maddfun.com). His FEC has a diverse clientele, both ethnically and spiritually, and the holidays occasionally bring some trying moments.
 “We have a broad spectrum of Hasidic Jews, Muslims, Asians, African-Americans, Latinos, and others, and they all handle the holidays differently,” Haynes says. “We call Christmas the holidays to be more politically correct, but there are those who want it more defined and who say we’re just sitting on the fence.”
He says in addition to Christmas, Madd Fun celebrates Yom Kippur, Kwanzaa, Purim, the Celebration of the Tiger, and other holidays. The toughest challenge for him and his staff occurs when different religious holidays overlap, like this year when Easter and Passover fell during the same time period. During these times, he says the various religious groups often want to have the facility all to themselves. “If they want to have the house to themselves exclusively, it will cost them more money because they are preventing others from coming in, and we have to make that up as a business,” he says. “It gets very sticky not to offend somebody politically, especially if they know our religion and think we’re being biased.”
 Haynes notes a Jewish group wanted Madd Fun to itself during Passover, but that wasn’t going to happen, as it could upset other groups that frequent the facility. He says the solution was to let them have the facility exclusively for part of the day, then open it to everyone.
Because of his Roman Catholic background, Haynes has Christmas trees and other decorations in place during December; they are nonreligious, but Haynes says there are still issues: “For the Hasidics or the Muslims, when we do their events we have to be careful. Snowflakes are fine, wreaths are borderline, but Christmas trees, angels, and decorations with a cross on it are a no-no. Sometimes it’s not real pretty, and we’ve had people take down ornaments or cover them up without permission.”
For Haynes and his staff, it’s a matter of having religious calendars of all the different groups and just learning the guidelines. “Sometimes I have to get in there and be mister diplomat,” he says, “but 99 percent of the time I’d say that everyone walks away satisfied because of the effort we put into handling these situations.” (For more on Madd Fun, see FUNWORLD’s September 2008 cover story.) |
|
