Being a Jew in C-U: December Dilemma, Part 1
December 3, 2009 by Laura Weisskopf Bleill
Filed under Being a Jew in C-U, Lifestyle, Parenting in CU
I love this snowman making s'mores. Credit: Laura Weisskopf Bleill
I’ve never felt deprived that I didn’t celebrate Christmas. At least, I don’t remember feeling that way. We’re now starting to get questions from our eldest daughter about why we are different from our friends, neighbors, even some of our family. Why don’t we have a Christmas tree, mama? Why don’t we have lights in the dark in front of our house? Why, why, why?
The answers can be quite vexing to a preschooler (to whom fairness and sharing are two major themes). Being different is not a value that’s always emphasized or celebrated at that age.
So I’ve come up with a new, very tongue-in-cheek answer: we can’t afford Christmas. To put it more positively, because we don’t celebrate Christmas, we get to do many fun activities during the entire rest of the year.
The basic premise is this: If we celebrated Christmas, someone would have to keep all the decorating catalogs away from me. Our light display would be enough to make Ameren be my best friend. There would be Santa pictures to be taken (even with the dog!), Santa plates (for the cookies) to be made and stockings to be filled. Then there are ornaments, trees, and wreaths we would need to have. And I haven’t even gotten to the presents yet, or contributions to those in need. Not to mention cookies, all those cookies.
So now I’m thankful to be a Jew at Christmas time. Because after adding up all those numbers in my head — wow. It’s pretty daunting. I don’t know how you all do it.
Laura Weisskopf Bleill is a co-founder of chambanamoms.com, and not-so-secretly covets one of the replica leg lamps from A Christmas Story. She writes “Being a Jew in C-U,” a column about a column about being a Jewish suburban girl in a cornfield, on Thursdays. You can reach her at laura@chambanamoms.com.
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If Hanukkah lines up with Leah’s Christmas visit, we get to do both. DOwn the road I’m probably going to have both Christmas and Hanukkah decorations so she doesn’t have to schlepp them from Chicago. I try to buy blue winter themed things that can do double duty now, like towels and tablecloths. And blue and white lights for the tree. We’ll be the secular Chrismakkah home.
I just read this post yesterday, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I don’t often (ever) respond to anything I read on the internet, so this is a first for me. I’m responding because I think the vision of this website is for parents to share ideas with each other, and while I’m not Jewish, I have some thoughts and ideas that *maybe* might be helpful in situations like these.
I should clarify that I’m Unitarian-Universalist, which is a religion guided by seven principle that most world religions have in common. This commonality is what appeals to us the most about it UUism – if the vast majority of spirituality-seeking humans have found these things to be true, perhaps we have, as a species, really stumbled upon a greater truth.
BUT – it does put us, as a family, in a place where we intentionally decide which holidays we celebrate. For example, we are not strictly Christian, though my husband and I were raised that way. So the question of whether or how to celebrate the Christian holy days was one we discussed at length. At first, we decided to celebrate them “secularly” (Santas and Easter Bunnies and what not), but we found that ignoring the religious significance of the holidays resulted in a loss of depth we were not comfortable with. Now, we teach and celebrate the religious significance of the holidays – but we do not limit ourselves to Christian holidays. For example, we celebrate the winter solstice with the same spiritual depth as we do Christmas – and with much of the same fanfare.
All that said, we only celebrate Jewish holidays by invitation. It’s our understanding that unlike many other religions that you can “convert” to, being Jewish is something you *are* rather than something you *do*. However, we have been blessed with many friends who are happy to include us in their Jewish holiday celebrations – and as you note in your post, the ones of most significance, the ones we’ve enjoyed most, are actually not Chanukah. Often, when we leave the home of a friend who’s shared a Jewish holiday with us, our children will ask why we don’t celebrate that holiday. “That was *so* fun! Why don’t we do that? Can we start celebrating that holiday?”
And suddenly, we’re in a situation similar to what you describe in your post – with the added confusion of the fact that we celebrate holidays from such varied religious traditions in our home. As a result, my husband and I learned to speak early of what we believe, *really* believe, spiritually. Between 3 and 5, our children began learning that Jewish heritage isn’t something you put on because the holiday you just shared was “cool”. I say “began learning”, because clearly, there’s a limit to the depth of spiritual conversation you can have with a pre-schooler.
I think, too, that even with those who celebrate Christmas, there is a conflict between the spiritual significance of the holiday and all the trappings. We enjoy the stories and mythology of Santa equal to the stories and historical/spiritual significance of the birth of Jesus. But this is not the case for many families who celebrate the holiday – and even among those who celebrate Christmas, we know those who do not incorporate “Santa” into their celebrations. Their children, while Christian, are asking the same questions as yours – “Why don’t we?”
And it seems to me that it all comes back to belief – “Because we don’t believe in Santa”. And I also think it’s fair to tell the truth about what Santa is – a tradition celebrated by a lot of families in which the parents sneak surprise presents under the tree for their kids in the morning. I certainly understand that parents may worry about a pre-schooler not being able to keep this “secret”, but I find that if it’s explained that there is an importance to the secret for the holiday tradition, the pre-schooler may be surprisingly skilled at keeping information to him/herself. And for insurance, kids who feel like believing in Santa will believe, no matter what some other pre-schooler says.
I guess, what I’m saying, is that we’ve found that fully explaining the religious tradition of someone else to our kids helps is situations like these. While they may still wish our family celebrated this “cool” holiday they were exposed to, they gain a greater understanding of the spiritual traditions it’s founded on – which helps them both gain greater respect for the tradition *and* start to understand why that tradition is not ours. This makes it possible, it seems, for them to enjoy and appreciate that other people celebrate a holiday that we do not.
I don’t know if anyone else finds our journey on this similar road useful, but I thought I’d share it, just in case there’s something here that helps. I know I enjoy hearing how other families handle similar challenges.
Anne, Thanks for your thoughts on this. This post was actually supposed to be funny! Did you see my latest post on this topic? I actually address this in a serious manner. Please take a look here:
http://www.chambanamoms.com/2009/12/10/being-a-jew-in-c-u-december-dilemma-part-ii/
Nope, Laura – hadn’t gotten that far. My reading time comes in really small increments these days.