With the holiday season approaching, much of the media and general excitement is dedicated towards Christmas whilst other holidays are pushed aside and almost forgotten.

Almost all movies relating to the holiday season have to do with Christmas (or a love story that seems to tie into the Christmas theme), events put on by the city are all Christmas-themed and even decorations in public places all scream “Christmas.” It’s as if the words “holidays” and “Christmas” have become synonymous in Western culture. 

According to Dr. Rehman Abdulrehman, “Our society tends to perpetuate a standard in media, in policy and practice of organizations, that critics often call the ‘white norm.’ In fact, researchers in the field of psychology have noted that the “white norm” is a reality and has negative psychological consequences to people of color, or people from cultural or religious groups that do not conform to the ‘white norm.’”

As the media tends to overrepresent Christmas and “white norm” standards, this influences how we as a population perceive the world. It creates normality which tends to exclude minority cultures. Furthermore, not only are these minority cultures excluded, but they are unknown to most of the population. 

“I feel like I would know about a lot more cultures if it was given as much media as Christmas,” Orli Probasco (’24) said. “…I wouldn’t care to know much about Christianity at all, but due to mainstream media [coverage] with the holiday of Christmas, it’s kind of forced me to learn about the reason for the holiday. If other holidays had the same spotlight the same thing would happen with them.”

This lack of understanding of minority cultures prevents us from understanding each other. A person is made up of many things; one such thing is cultural values. Understanding one’s culture has shown to be integral to creating relationships with one another.

According to Impactly, “Cultural awareness promotes people to build successful and professional relationships in diverse backgrounds.”

Such underrepresentation of minority holidays, and therefore culture, in the media, leads to a lack of cultural awareness which doesn’t just affect interpersonal relationships at the high school level, but even professional relationships which students will build post-graduation. 

The overrepresentation of Christmas in the media shapes one’s knowledge and understanding of the world. To provide a more balanced perspective of other cultures for future generations, more balanced coverage of minority holidays could be portrayed in the media. 

“To have a balanced representation of holidays from different cultures, they could be depicted in children’s books, movies, shows, etc. Minorities could also be encouraged to speak out about their cultures more frequently and with a “louder” voice,” Ayan Nallamshetti (’25) said.

Similarly, Probasco too believes that increased media coverage of minority holidays will help provide a more balanced perspective of other cultures. 

“Realistically that [the creation of a more balanced perspective] will never happen. Also realistically you won’t ever take away the publicity Christmas has from the media which is what “represents” society,” Probasco said. “The only way the future generations will have a more balanced representation is if the other holidays are also given the media Christmas and Easter have.”