A Jew in Christmas-land
There's nothing like Christmas looming on the horizon to make a person question their commitment to Judaism. One wants to participate in the sheer spectacle of it all: its status as both a national holiday and an oft-cherished family one, the three-month build-up as stores push every manner of toy and tchotchke at you and neighbors add lights upon lights to anything they can hang a light on, the TV specials and the episodes of every children's show in which its characters once again "save Christmas" (could they, this year, not? what would happen then, I wonder?), and of course the music. Oh, the music!
I finally got around to picking up my son's trombone for band this year from the music shop yesterday (long story) and he pointed out the small stand of music books for purchase at the back. There were, of course, half a dozen Christmas song books for any instrument you happened to play, but the only "holiday" book we found had a single nod to Chanukkah: "I have a little dreidel". Are you kidding me? As profound and full of meaning as "dreidel" happens to be, I had hoped for a song they might welcome us to play at the synagogue's holiday party. And that ain't it, kid.
Now, I realize that Jews are a vast minority in America (Americans, according to the Pew folks, claim to be 71% Christian, 23% Non-religious, 2% Jewish, and less than 1% each of the other major world religions) and so it doesn't make any sense for Music&Arts, or Target or Walmart for that matter, to waste any deal of shelf and floor space on our particular winter holiday.* But for crying out loud, why does everything stores sell this time of year have to be red-and-green?
When "yule" or "solstice" celebrations have been around -- quite apart from Christianity -- for millenia, why did Coca-Cola and Hallmark and Chuck Dickens and all of those others have to single out the religious holiday "Christmas" to generalize into everybody's holiday and mercantilize into such a big deal that even most of those 23% of non-religious Americans celebrate a "secular Christmas" with its Santa Claus and reindeer, its hopes for Christmas Miracles and Peace on Earth, its shopping-till-dropping on December 24th and gift-giving gluttony on the morning after, and its oft-repeated-but-never-defined "Christmas spirit" that all good Americans are supposed to embrace this time of year?
And when celebrating Christmas in America doesn't seem to depend on being religiously Christian any more , why do so many Jews across the spectrum of Judaism seem so adamant that it isn't our holiday to celebrate? It's just a bunch of old pagan light-in-the-dark-season customs merged with the celebration of some guy's birthday, right? And that guy was even Jewish! We even start the celebration the night before -- total Jewish holiday material there, right? Okay, so the word "Christ" in the name is kinda remarkably non-Jewish, and the religion that currently "owns" Christmas hasn't exactly been nice to our people even 50% of the time, and we do have our own holiday this time of year, but we've given in on Halloween -- why not Christmas, too?
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Since we are not actually officially Jewish yet, my wife and I have decided that there isn't any harm in letting our kids (okay, you got me: me, as well) celebrate Christmas with my mom and sister here in Texas like they always have, and to give and get presents from my wife's family like always. After all, wouldn't there be a rebellion on the order of the Maccabees' if our kids didn't get the winter holiday they expect, right? We'll celebrate Chanukkah at home and Christmas away -- like lots of half-Jewish families must do, right?
I began to be not-so-sure about this decision last weekend, when my mother asked "so, where does Jesus fit in your religious life now?" Despite the fact that the topic never really comes up, I stumbled through what little I've read about the Jewish take on Jesus. Turns out what she really wanted to know was how we could celebrate Christmas -- the birth of Jesus -- with any integrity when we are working on becoming Jewish at the same time. I responded that I still think Jesus was a great man, who stood for things and taught ideas and practices that, truth be told, are a lot closer to what Reform Judaism is about today than what many branches of Christianity seem to be about. Plus, Jesus was Jewish. So, as long as the kids don't get confused, why not celebrate a great Jew's birthday?
But there's the rub. Will the kids be confused? Will they think that, when faced with a cultural juggernaut, our Judaism turns out to be only skin deep? How do we convey that we are celebrating other people's holiday with them, as a family thing, instead of it being our holiday? Do we even need to convey that? Everybody says we do, but I'm not sure
---
Finally, in the spirit of getting as pumped-up about Hanukkah as the rest of the world seems to about Christmas, and in the spirit of excitement about a certain movie that will be coming out this holiday season (and, of course, in the spirit of gently poking fun at all of those "put Christ back in Christmas" signs and bumper stickers you start seeing around this time of year), I bring you a meme that ought to go viral...
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* Actually, I have seen end-caps in Target's holiday aisle with chintzy plastic menorot and blue-and-white decorations for a few years now, and that must mean Jews make up a non-neglectable portion of American consumers. Either that, or we complain a lot.
I finally got around to picking up my son's trombone for band this year from the music shop yesterday (long story) and he pointed out the small stand of music books for purchase at the back. There were, of course, half a dozen Christmas song books for any instrument you happened to play, but the only "holiday" book we found had a single nod to Chanukkah: "I have a little dreidel". Are you kidding me? As profound and full of meaning as "dreidel" happens to be, I had hoped for a song they might welcome us to play at the synagogue's holiday party. And that ain't it, kid.
Now, I realize that Jews are a vast minority in America (Americans, according to the Pew folks, claim to be 71% Christian, 23% Non-religious, 2% Jewish, and less than 1% each of the other major world religions) and so it doesn't make any sense for Music&Arts, or Target or Walmart for that matter, to waste any deal of shelf and floor space on our particular winter holiday.* But for crying out loud, why does everything stores sell this time of year have to be red-and-green?
When "yule" or "solstice" celebrations have been around -- quite apart from Christianity -- for millenia, why did Coca-Cola and Hallmark and Chuck Dickens and all of those others have to single out the religious holiday "Christmas" to generalize into everybody's holiday and mercantilize into such a big deal that even most of those 23% of non-religious Americans celebrate a "secular Christmas" with its Santa Claus and reindeer, its hopes for Christmas Miracles and Peace on Earth, its shopping-till-dropping on December 24th and gift-giving gluttony on the morning after, and its oft-repeated-but-never-defined "Christmas spirit" that all good Americans are supposed to embrace this time of year?
And when celebrating Christmas in America doesn't seem to depend on being religiously Christian any more , why do so many Jews across the spectrum of Judaism seem so adamant that it isn't our holiday to celebrate? It's just a bunch of old pagan light-in-the-dark-season customs merged with the celebration of some guy's birthday, right? And that guy was even Jewish! We even start the celebration the night before -- total Jewish holiday material there, right? Okay, so the word "Christ" in the name is kinda remarkably non-Jewish, and the religion that currently "owns" Christmas hasn't exactly been nice to our people even 50% of the time, and we do have our own holiday this time of year, but we've given in on Halloween -- why not Christmas, too?
---
Since we are not actually officially Jewish yet, my wife and I have decided that there isn't any harm in letting our kids (okay, you got me: me, as well) celebrate Christmas with my mom and sister here in Texas like they always have, and to give and get presents from my wife's family like always. After all, wouldn't there be a rebellion on the order of the Maccabees' if our kids didn't get the winter holiday they expect, right? We'll celebrate Chanukkah at home and Christmas away -- like lots of half-Jewish families must do, right?
I began to be not-so-sure about this decision last weekend, when my mother asked "so, where does Jesus fit in your religious life now?" Despite the fact that the topic never really comes up, I stumbled through what little I've read about the Jewish take on Jesus. Turns out what she really wanted to know was how we could celebrate Christmas -- the birth of Jesus -- with any integrity when we are working on becoming Jewish at the same time. I responded that I still think Jesus was a great man, who stood for things and taught ideas and practices that, truth be told, are a lot closer to what Reform Judaism is about today than what many branches of Christianity seem to be about. Plus, Jesus was Jewish. So, as long as the kids don't get confused, why not celebrate a great Jew's birthday?
But there's the rub. Will the kids be confused? Will they think that, when faced with a cultural juggernaut, our Judaism turns out to be only skin deep? How do we convey that we are celebrating other people's holiday with them, as a family thing, instead of it being our holiday? Do we even need to convey that? Everybody says we do, but I'm not sure
---
Finally, in the spirit of getting as pumped-up about Hanukkah as the rest of the world seems to about Christmas, and in the spirit of excitement about a certain movie that will be coming out this holiday season (and, of course, in the spirit of gently poking fun at all of those "put Christ back in Christmas" signs and bumper stickers you start seeing around this time of year), I bring you a meme that ought to go viral...
---
* Actually, I have seen end-caps in Target's holiday aisle with chintzy plastic menorot and blue-and-white decorations for a few years now, and that must mean Jews make up a non-neglectable portion of American consumers. Either that, or we complain a lot.
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