The Zombie Stack Exchanges That Just Won't Die
Historically our public library has avoided holiday decorations, but every year staff and members of the public ask about the bah-humbug attitude, reluctantly accepting the explanation that we are avoiding displays that might be perceived as religious since we are a government agency (even though other government agencies often have trees in their lobbies). I would like to create defensible guidelines for decorations that will allow some festivity without creating offense, and am interested in what policies other libraries have written that work.
Mary Jo Finch
Well, one jiujitsu move might be asking several different faith communities (or whatever interfaith council might exist) in your area to come together to make suggestions for such a policy. How well this will work obviously depends on the level of faith diversity in your community!
Failing that, New Year's is secular enough not to excite comment, and plenty festive. Thanksgiving, for all its sketchy historical construction, is a civic holiday.
What I'd be wickedly tempted to do is cycle through a year of multicultural holidays, from Kwanzaa to Ramadan to Diwali to Rosh Hashanah and beyond. Kick out the jams and be festive -- inclusively festive! And if you can bring local folk from various faiths in to help you build and market those displays, so much the better.
I recommend winter/spring decorations. Snow, polar bears and snowmen or bunnies and flowers. Be more focused on the season rather than the holiday in that season.
I feel sort of strongly that public spaces need to be accessible to the entire public which either means a blow out "let's really cover every single holiday that people might celebrate in this season" or a more generic winter-themed approach. There is nothing wrong with individuals being Christmas-oriented, but it definitely sends a message if public OR staff-only spaces in the library are just doing a generic Xmas thing. As a non-Xmas celebrator this is important to me, less so that you have equal time for Chanukah but that you're mindful that it's a holiday time of the year for many different types of people.
I think holiday decorations tied in with book choices about those holidays is very attractive. It's also a good way to double-check that you do own books on holidays other than Christian and Jewish!