The winter holiday season strengthens - and challenges - our Jewish identity. Credit: Coreyu on flickr
Santa isn’t coming to our house on Christmas Eve. And my preschooler is pretty mad at him. She wouldn’t even listen to him tell stories when we were at a department store the other day (but she gladly took a candy cane).
I told her it wasn’t Santa’s fault. “Well sweetie, we don’t celebrate Christmas. And you have to celebrate Christmas for Santa to come to your house.”
It’s a question that many Jewish parents struggle with – how to address Santa’s “discriminatory” practices on Christmas Eve. Does he not like us? Doesn’t he care? What if we leave cookies for him? Or a stocking? Or a shoe on our doorstep?
Many parents fall into what I call the Chanukah trap. “Well, kids, we don’t have Santa, but our holiday lasts for eight days and nights! And that means a present every night! An eight-day holiday is better than one, right?”
Wrong.
Chanukah is just not that important a Jewish holiday. The only reason it gets the attention it does is because it happens to fall near a certain blockbuster that takes on epic proportions in our society. The whole concept of Chanukah gifts is one that grew out of assimilation; gift exchanges were not traditionally a part of the celebration.
Chanukah is fun. We get to eat food that’s not good for us, play games, and light pretty candles. It’s one of the “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat!” holidays. But it doesn’t have nearly the religious significance of Christmas.
When I addressed this topic with my daughter today, I reminded her that not only do we celebrate Chanukah this week, but we also will observe Shabbat as we do every week (the Sabbath). And we have a whole bevy of other holidays, many that we recently celebrated in the fall (such as Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Sukkot, a harvest festival).
The reality is that we ARE different, but there is no other time of year that emphasizes our differences as much as this one. We’re not just Jewish at Christmastime. We’re Jewish all year round.
Laura Weisskopf Bleill, a co-founder of chambanamoms.com, makes a mean Chanukah sugar cookie and loves most food fried in oil. 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.
No related posts.
A few years ago, I was picking up some Chanukah items at Bed, Bath and Beyond (Wilmette, you know) and I overheard a little girl say to to mom, “I wish we were Jewish so I could celebrate Chanukah.” I practically laughed out loud because, yes, Christmas, or at least the modern trappings of it are soooo seductive.
I think you did a fine job with your daughter. When the boys were younger (maybe even now) I focused on the foods around the holidays (ooh, apples and honey, ooh jelly doughnuts, yum fresh challah) because I think that makes a strong and lasting impression. Here’s hoping!
Love the timing of this. My husband and I have been dealing with this topic over the last year or so. Our 6 year old son does not understand why he is the only child at his regular school that celebrates Chanukah and does not have Santa visit. Thanks to Hebrew School he feels a little better about it. TechyDad wrote about his feelings on the subject recently on his blog.
We try to focus on family time and special foods during Chanukah. Saturday we are doing that along with a few gifts when the extended family is in town.
Two thumbs up, Laura!