Let's just start with the basics. Like most American Jews I love Christmas. I love the music, I love the lights, I love the cookies, I love looking in other people's houses and seeing their decorations. I've been to at least 5 Christmas services and quite possibly more. My family always sponsored Christmas gifts for a needy family and my mother encouraged us to participate in whatever we wanted to - all as part of appreciating my friend's traditions. When I worked in retail I happily wished everyone who told me that they were celebrating Christmas a "Merry Christmas" just as I would hope they would wish me "chag sameach" in September.
But I don't celebrate Christmas. And especially not in my home. There are no "holiday" lights or treats in our house - the only seasonal holiday will end tomorrow night at sunset. We do have a very traditional way of celebrating Christmas day itself - a matinee and Chinese take-out, but that is not religious. And it is important to me that my fusspot understands the difference. We can learn about and celebrate other's traditions, but our house is an observant one.
And I am sure that I am more defensive this year both because I have a child whose religious education I am responsible for and because I am living in a country which simply refuses to recognize that it has any minorities at all.
In Judaism we often say a prayer to celebrate firsts. First steps, first day of school, first time you eat a fruit in a given year. So today when I dropped the fusspot at daycare and took home a card I opened it with a silent wish: May this be the first and the last time I ever receive a card which says "Merry Christmas" on it from my daughter.
ps - While I was not particularly peeved that the fusspot's daycare room is decorated for Christmas (complete with papercut trees, a mini-tree on a desk and Santas) or that Santa himself came to visit, I was peeved to see a little wooden nativity scene for the babies to play with. In my mind that is crossing the line (and no, it is not a religious daycare).
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4 comments:
I understand that Hanukkah is a minor holiday for many Jews, but I appreciate that you can enjoy the visual beauty of Christmas as we Christians celebrate. Would you educate me by ranking the Jewish holidays (maybe the top 5 of so) by importance? (like for Christians, it's all about Christmas and then Easter, and then Good Friday, etc.)
For what it's worth, last night I was on the Fi.sher Pr.ice web site, and they have a Littl.e Pe.ople playset of Hanukkah figurines. They actually have them for Thanksgiving, lots of Christmas ones (we ordered the Nativity one), Halloween, and a few others (for anyone else who may be looking).
I am still wishing you a Happy Hanukkah. I think I read that it's VERY early next year, like Dec. 1st?! I have to look up these things so I don't set group meetings for my employer that would mean 20% of our members having to miss.
Christmas is a very interesting holiday to me- I love the traditions & the family closenes. The lights & decorations are like visual pron for the designer in me. But the religious observation isn't for me or my family. The hub was never raised in any denomination & I am a through & through agnostic.
I would be a little annoyed at the daycare as well- I am all for learning about different religions & being respectful of other traditions- but that is a many lane highway- not a one way street!
Wishing you a joyful season and some delicious chinese takeout! (and if you remind me next august- I will certainly be wishing you a 'chag sameach', but you will have to let me know what it means first!)
We have the extra complication that, while we have a Jewish home, my in-laws are Christian. Hubby converted to Judaism before we were married. And while his parents are remarkably supportive of him, and even fly to visit us for Pesach every year, they STILL haven't internalized that we don't celebrate Christmas. Easter, etc., they get. But not celebrating Christmas is unfathomable to many people. And our child is going to grow up knowing that almost everyone around him, including half of his grandparents, do celebrate Christmas.
We're taking this approach with him: when it's your friend's birthday, you celebrate his birthday at his house, and you have fun with the balloons and cake and games. But it's not YOUR birthday, so when you come home, we leave all that at the friend's house. Same with Christmas. Love looking at the lights, and you may even help Grandma decorate a Christmas tree, because it's HER holiday, but it's not OUR holiday, so we don't bring any of that home.
Our daycare was fairly understanding this year about not shoving Christmas too much in our face, and I shrug about kids making Christmas cards as kind of the price I pay for sending him to a non-Jewish private daycare.
But yeah, the nativity scene would annoy me.
Anyway, enjoy your Chinese food. We'll be doing the same.
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