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Transcript

THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS. PCS #31

Busted Pencils · Fri Dec 26, 2025

[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

Whoo!

Think After!

Yeah, day after Christmas, producer's choice, Dr. Tim Slecker, Jacob Charman of the

Boards, busted pencils, fully-ledded education-talk-educated educators, talking education, where's Johnny the

day after Christmas?

Jacob, the last I heard, there was a stack, a mound of wrapping papers, seen somewhere in the

state of Washington, so high, but they sensed there was movement under that wrapping paper.

And some people are potentially saying they think Johnny just overindulged in wrapping paper

on Christmas.

You hate to see it, it's a horrible thing that takes place all over America, you know,

a lot of people buried beneath wrapping paper, it's a tragedy every time, but thankfully Johnny

is going to dig himself out, we expect it, we're going to get him back here on the show

very, very soon, Tim.

Yeah, I hope so, because I mean, where's the other thing?

You know, I mean, people are like, it's such a tragedy to see people buried in wrapping

paper.

Yeah, a lot of people say that, not you.

I would just think, what about the people who don't have any wrapping paper to be buried

under, you know, the people that do the, we don't wrap Christmas gifts?

Have you met any of these people?

What is this horrible thing you're telling me about right now, Tim?

I'm glad it waited until after Christmas to harsh my mellow, what are you talking about?

There's a, there's a culture out there that the no wrap gifts for Christmas culture.

I've experienced a few and I'm going to give a little bit, it is a lot easier after

you quote, open your gifts.

There's no cleanup needed.

Tim, none of this was about it making sense.

Okay.

It's a holiday.

It's an arbitrary tradition.

And gosh, dumb it.

I'm not going to have you taking my wonderful wrapping paper.

I love struggling to open up my gift and then having pile upon pile of wasted discarded

paper to deal with.

That's part of the holiday for me to him.

He can't change things since I was a boy, it has to stay exactly the same.

I need wrapping paper.

I need people to have gone out and spent good money on paper that was, you know, event

was originally part of a tall standing tree somewhere sucking out the carbon dioxide

from the air and contributing to life on this planet.

I needed that tree to go away so I could wrap and then unwrap, well, actually tear the

flesh of what used to be a tree and throw it on the ground so that people could stamp

on it.

Am I painting a sad enough picture for you, Jacob?

Darnit Tim, that's my CO2 and I'm sick of these trees sucking it up and taking it from

me.

All right.

No.

I'm done.

I love Christmas.

I will admit though, Jacob, I'm, I'm this guy, I'm going to point this out, you know,

I've been getting razzed on it.

If, if I'm around as you're quote, unwrapping or ripping the wrapping paper off of your

presence, I can't let it sit on the floor very long.

I got, I got to get it and pick it up and put it in a bag.

Come on, Tim.

It's Christmas.

I, I got no problem with the wrapping paper and the joy and the fun, but like when it

starts accumulating around people, you know, I mean, look what happened to Johnny, right?

I know.

Maybe if, maybe if he didn't do this, he wouldn't be in this situation.

I guess you know, you might have a point.

So anyway, but yeah, I'm, I'm like, would you sit down already and quit picking up the

wrapping paper?

Like, um, I would if I could, but my head won't let me because every time I see wrapping

paper on the ground, I get stressed out.

So if you want me to sit and relax, I can need to pick up the wrapping paper chick.

I'm, maybe I'm admitting too much on this day after Christmas.

Tim, look, man, you've got a compulsion to pick up wrapping paper and that's, that's

fine because I too have a compulsion to do the producer's choice show every single Friday

here on Busted Pencils.

And here we go with the intro for two, two producer, Jacob's choice, chairman of the board.

You and I will have two choices, chairman of the board, Jacob, oh, Jacob chairman of the

board.

I, I've got the board, it's spelled B-O-R-E-D.

We choose to go to the moon.

Life's full of tough choices in here.

We chose one.

Welcome to the producer's choice show for December 22nd, 2025.

I am joined today for an intimate one on one interview with one of my favorite educated

educators, namely Dr. Tim Slecker.

Tim, you've been a teacher and administrator, you've written on education, you've advocated

for education.

And now you're best known for being the co-host of Busted Pencils and most importantly,

my boss, Tim.

Thanks for being here.

Woo.

Not a problem, Jacob.

Wait, I, I thought the boss thing was the other way around.

Well, you, you've hired me to come boss you guys around and make sure that you do your

jobs.

It's, it's sort of a cyclical thing, mutually beneficial.

Cool.

I'm so glad I've hired a boss.

No, Jacob, I'm, I'm excited to be here again, you know, being a guest on my own show is

something that many hosts wish could happen to them, but it has come true for me.

I get to be a guest on my own show.

Tim, the day after Christmas, just like all year round, I'm making your, your dreams

and your wishes come true by letting you be a guest on your own show.

I'm going to ask you a question.

And I wonder, do you know why I'm going to do this?

Why did I do that, Tim?

Uh, fight club end of the boxing ring, um, you know, he's a, he knocked out.

No.

Oh, Tim, you're wrong.

I did that.

You're, you're barking up the right tree, but you missed the key here.

It's December 26th, AKA boxing day.

It is boxing day, folks.

If you're wondering what that is, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, it is a holiday

in which servants, tradespeople and the poor traditionally were presented with gifts,

but by the 21st century became a holiday associated with shopping and sports events.

It's mainly celebrated in the United Kingdom and other commonwealth countries.

And Tim, that got me thinking, as I realized, it was boxing day and as Christmas came to

an end, that man, there are so many different cultural and religious customs associated

with the holidays.

One country does this, another does that.

We don't have boxing day, but our British friends across the pond do.

There's so many different holidays.

And it got me thinking, Tim, you and I did a show on this Monday about controversies surrounding

the nativity scene, which I will link to in the description of this show.

And that got me thinking, now that Christmas is over, maybe we should get into the nitty-gritty

of these political questions surrounding how holidays work.

Okay, I'm with you.

So I'm going to start us off with a pretty simple question, Tim.

You and I have both heard a lot about the so-called war on Christmas.

And I'll just pull the curtain aside.

I'm not totally sold on how real those complaints actually are, but I'm wondering if you have

noticed any changes in the way schools approach celebrating the holidays since you were a kid

back in the 1950s.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

I'm saying, Jacob, that would be the 70s.

Sorry, sorry.

Yeah, 1870s.

Back when people wore really bad pants and men had really bad moustaches.

I've seen Berk Reynolds.

I don't know.

You know what?

Yes.

Absolutely.

Things have changed.

So you want a fact check?

Yes.

When I was in school in the 70s, homestead, Pennsylvania,

Calhoun Elementary School, it was all about Christmas,

Jacob.

It was the Christmas season.

It was celebration.

It was packaging.

It was, you know, nativity scenes, you know, Europeans

who were totally in all the nativity scenes.

And we were happy about that.

Or actually, we're like, I don't know.

It's the only nativity scene I'd ever seen at that point.

You know, my geography and my place-based understanding

of culture was not very well developed

in the second and third grades.

So, but yeah, and, you know, now, for sure,

it is more of this sense of, if you're

talking about public schools, you know,

there's a, quote, holiday season now, Jacob, right?

Because, well, and, you know, this was the beginning

of the war on Christmas, because if you say happy holidays,

you're part of the problem, Jacob.

And that, so, I mean, you know, and that change actually

and I'm going to point out, I see a changing again

that's actually occurring right before both of our eyes

and even Johnny when he comes out from under that wrapping

paper, that I would say probably the early 2000s

through the 2010s, the whole idea of happy holidays,

inclusive Christmas, you know, potentially even pointing out

that, you know, maybe the nativity scene was slightly

Eurocentric.

None of that was a problem except we didn't know

that it was a problem except for Sean Hannity and those guys

Russian about the time pointing out that actually,

those of us participating in happy holidays and not

Merry Christmas, we were part of the movement to do away

with Christmas.

And actually now, I will say, without judgment,

Christmas is back, baby, and we're proud of it.

Really?

Well, I, that's a, I get a sense now that, you know,

people have been liberated from the holidays and are now

allowed to celebrate Christmas again, you know, because all

those years, oh, wait, you were still allowed to celebrate

Christmas, storing all those years too, but I'm so confused,

Jacob.

These rules around Christmas are so confusing because, you

know, yeah, do you go to jail if you celebrate Christmas?

Do you not?

It's never been clear to me.

But so you're saying that you have seen some changes and I'm

getting that it's in the direction of a more inclusive holiday

season within schools.

Is that, is that correct?

Yeah, it's a, and I will point out that it is geographically

different, though, too.

Some of your small world conservative type areas, you know,

was a whole lot of still kind of like, you know, an overtone

of Christmas in the holiday season, but an awareness that there

should be some form of inclusivity in the way we celebrate

the holidays, right?

So the point where when I was in the Baltimore Washington

area, you know, it was very much that inclusive holiday

season was in every school.

And largely people, well, the diversity of the population

in the Baltimore Washington area was that those communities

had a diversity of understandings of what the holiday season

meant.

And so as a public school, representing as many or being as open

was just something that was, you know, actually good to do.

So I've seen that and now I can see a change where people

are potentially now, even district administrators potentially

going, like I feel like I need to actually blatantly celebrate

Christmas now, and even feeling like they need to potentially be

exclusionary, so as not to draw the iron of the, what do you

want to say, the counter attack on the war on Christmas?

You don't want to get attacked by the politically incorrect

police who are just as voracious sometimes or more likely, I

would say, yeah, I know you've got more questions.

So I'm going to shut up and let you keep going because I mean,

I could go on this thing for a long time.

Well, maybe some of those thoughts that you have can apply to

the second question as well, because we're talking about coming

from your experience growing up to where we are now.

I want to know as a teacher, how did you go about promoting

holiday cheer in your classroom without potentially offending

those who don't celebrate this holiday or that holiday or making

people feel feel left out for their beliefs?

How'd you go about it, Tim?

Oh, Jacob, you got me, you got me, I'm going to be, I'm going

to be truthful.

I, when I first started teaching and had my own classroom 1990,

back then and, you know, as the 80s ended and the end of the best

decade ever, and we began the beginning of what is now

feeling like 40 years of a march towards the end.

Mary Christmas, everyone, you know what?

I, I wasn't as cool, kind of keen to the inclusivity idea.

It wasn't that I, you know, I wasn't trying to blatantly be like,

you're going to enjoy my Christmas little kids, regardless of what

you think. It was just, I was following the cultural norms.

And so, and at North Elementary School in Williamsburg, Virginia,

where I was a second grade teacher, everybody in the school,

teachers included, we put up, you know, Christmas stuff.

I will say though, the, there was an introduction, though, to, to

include Hanukkah because our principal, Dr. Myers was Jewish.

And so, you know, but, but again, that maybe was the only kind of

nod to intentional inclusivity.

And, and so, yeah, it, it really was, for me, the, the, the,

is, is when I started my graduate work, actually down in, at the

University of Maryland, you know, right in the Baltimore,

Washington metropolitan area, where these conversations about

inclusivity, diversity, cultural understanding really became

front and center in what I was learning about education.

And, and so, I probably spent more time talking about an

inclusive holiday, Christmas season, with future teachers,

than I did as a teacher myself.

Well, what lessons did you learn there?

And how did you apply them when you became a teacher of teachers?

I mean, what was your message to your young teachers that you're

educating on the holiday season?

I mean, what should you do?

Well, you know, at, at that point, Jacob, I had become doctor,

Tim Slecker, and that doesn't mean you know everything now.

Yeah, and I, and I became a professor at a college.

So you, you know, right away that my ultra orthodox socialistic

Marxist, um, indoctrination chops were out fully swinging.

Tell him, Karen, advocating for actually, you know,

uh, look, you want to participate in this, uh, commercial exploitation

of all the people's out there that are doing it fine.

You know, just to understand that when you're putting up these holiday

celebrations, future teachers, make sure that you're letting

those students know about the exploitation that's happening overseas

to create the cheap throwaway garbage that we put.

No, I didn't.

Okay, I said, like, you're a lot of fun at parties.

No, you know what?

I, it was like, I brought to them this sense of saying, and there was

an honesty of going like, look, I, you know, we didn't the culture of

the little small town in homestead, Pennsylvania, the idea of inclusion

was, you know, um, like the weird neighbors two doors down.

Yeah, we, we'd seen Christmas carols for them, you know, um, but it really,

I, I've always approached that as going, it's a good thing to be

conscience of others.

And, and what that meant to me was not the exclusion of Christmas,

but the inclusion of others into what we would say is a holiday season.

And even the inclusion of others that don't have quote that cultural holiday

season, right?

There are, you know, Chris Jones, who don't celebrate Christmas.

And, and some of those children are going to be in your classrooms too.

So again, it's not the, this idea of giving into the leftist, you know,

indoctrination mob, it's actually looking at and saying it's an evolution of

recognition of going like, you know, isolated cultures.

We don't live in that world.

And so to recognize, be respectful, acknowledge is just what a good teacher

and a public school should be doing.

Tim, you're talking about how inclusion does not mean exclusion of Christmas.

And here's my third and most important question to him, uh, I've been saving

it for last.

The first amendment prevents the government from establishing a religion,

Dr. Tim Slecker does having a little Christmas tree in the classroom,

violate the first amendment, or as our modern commercialized secular Christmas,

something we can all enjoy.

Oh, I love that question, because actually, yeah, what, what's potentially more

offensive, um, a Christmas tree or an acknowledgement that, um,

actually what we're supposed to be celebrating and what we actually practice,

mass consumerism, commercial, right?

Welcome, son of God, save your peace on earth.

Now I get to exploit workers spend money on things I don't have or don't need.

Go, no, um, Tim, when the Lord comes back and he sees he can get a new

Kia with 0% APR, I think that's going to be really, that's, that's how you

want to celebrate that event happening.

Uh, no, I, I mean, I, I mean, I, I don't know.

How's that for an answer brief?

I refresh me again on that one.

Tim, I'm wondering if Christmas as it is celebrated in sort of a lame stream

middle class American context is so watered down of any actual religious

context that it's okay, really even about religion.

It's more of a cultural American, uh, snoopy holiday.

Okay, yeah, putting up a Christmas tree, you know, is, is that state-sponsored

religious indoctrination?

No, could it be potentially if it is exclusionary of other religions?

And if you were, in fact, saying we only, we as a public school or a public

only acknowledge and recognize Christmas.

And that's why I have a Christmas tree.

It might be a different conversation now because that could be potentially

read as the government, the state putting forward through a public

institution, a mandate about a religion.

And so actually though, but, you know, putting up a Christmas tree and then

somebody going, you know, what about, and if you're willing to say, Oh, yeah,

what about great?

Let's set something up for them too, right?

Not a problem.

I always said this is I love the whole concept of actually teaching about religion

because that would be actually one of the kind of fallback positions, you

know, my students who were going to be teachers would go forward is,

Dr. Psycho, yeah, you can't teach religion in schools.

It's, you know, it's a violation of the constitution.

And I don't know where, where'd you get that?

Yeah.

And, and most of the time it was, uh, I don't know, osmosis.

Yes, yeah.

But, but what, what, what they were saying was is that religion is thorny,

is contentious.

And so they've learned actually that the way to avoid cold controversy

and things is, is that you shy away from teaching religion, which then

somehow gets, you know, kind of colluded and muddled in with, well, you

know, I'm just, it's, I just don't want to go against the constitution.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, no.

Actually teaching about religion is good education.

Yeah.

And is it possible that on the other side of those thorns and

brambles of controversial religious conversations is a nice meadow of

educational understanding?

I mean, this is the thing I always said is is that actually, um,

those most concerned with, uh, religious indoctrination through some form of

kind of anti indoctrination by not celebrating Christmas, which is, you

know, some, is its own form of indoctrination.

Um, I'd say teach religion about religions, whole hard to jump in and go for

it because now, what is the blowback really about?

Wait a minute.

You cannot be exposing my kids to other religions, Jacob.

That's the heart of what that ends up coming down to is going, uh,

and, and so that's one I kind of point out to, you know, the religious

truly indoctrinators gone, um, you know, if, if you quote, really

are successful in needing to make Christianity, the right now state