By Neal Schindler
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What’s it like to be Jewish at Christmastime?
If you had asked me this question last year, I might have prefaced my answer by saying: “Well, I’m not your typical Jew, but…” Now I feel the need to footnote that preface. Sure, I’m intermarried (to a Lutheran) and as passionate about interfaith work as about Judaism. I attend both church and synagogue and celebrate Christmas (though not religiously) as well as Hanukkah. But guess what? A surprising number of American Jews decorate Christmas trees in addition to lighting menorahs, spinning dreidels, and frying up latkes. (In case you’re unaware, those are Hanukkah things.)
Admittedly, most of America’s Yuletide-loving Jews are probably Reform or some other stripe of deeply unorthodox. But Reform is the largest branch of American Judaism (according to the Pew Research Center, among other sources), and the intermarriage rate isn’t likely to decline anytime soon. So what’s it like to be a Jew at Christmastime? Here’s what it’s like for this Jew:
As the interim director of Spokane Area Jewish Family Services, I have become increasingly sensitive to one of the great intellectual debates of our time: “Merry Christmas!” vs. “Happy holidays!” The other day at a dollar store, a checkout person said “Merry Christmas!” to a customer. The customer responded: “Thank you so much for not saying ‘Happy holidays’!” I really wanted to wish him a happy Kwanzaa.
A Jewish friend and I discussed this exchange soon after. She asked why some people are so upset by the big-tent inclusiveness of “Happy holidays.” “It’s because they’re worried about Christ being taken out of Christmas,” I replied. “Haven’t you seen the big billboard in Spokane that urges people to keep Christ in Christmas?”
My view: In the good ol’ U.S.A., no one is taking Christ away from you, at Christmastime or any other time, Moody Radio’s rants notwithstanding. You have control over how spiritual your own celebration of Christmas is. The broader culture may be awash in materialism, same-sex marriage, and weirdos who celebrate holidays other than Christmas in December, but no one is banging down your door and extracting Jesus from your home. Chill, disgruntled dollar-store customer. Chill.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I can confess: I love Christmastime and have since childhood. I grew up believing in Santa and leaving cookies and milk for him and the reindeer. I love Christmas songs, possibly even more than my Christian wife. I am very much into Advent. I also like Chanukah, but I recognize that Chanukah is a festival, not a High Holiday, whereas Christmas celebrates, for Christians, the birth of God’s son. So I’m loath to pit them against one another in a holiday cage match of the mind.
That’s a good policy across the board, I think. Easter isn’t Passover, Christmas isn’t Hanukkah, and a beautiful, aromatic tree decorated with lights and ornaments is not a sign that I’ve renounced my Judaism. For the record, here’s why my all-Jewish nuclear family celebrated Christmas: My father’s first wife wasn’t Jewish. She, my dad, and their children celebrated both Christian and Jewish holidays. Many years later, when my dad met my mom, who is Jewish, he didn’t want to give up Christmas. He raised me to believe that anything that brings warmth, light, and togetherness to the coldest, darkest time of year is a good thing.
Naturally, when The O.C. coined the term Chrismukkah in the mid-’00s, my thought was: Now we’re finally living in the 21st century. One of the show’s main characters, Seth Cohen, not only created “the greatest superholiday known to mankind” but also gave nice Jewish boys the world over the impression that maybe, just maybe, if they were both good-looking and geeky enough, they could end up dating Rachel Bilson.
But I digress. I love Christmastime. I love driving to Green Bluff with my wife to pick out a tree and schlep it home. I love “The Carol of the Bells” as long as it’s choral instead of cheesified, synth-driven claptrap. And I love remembering my father, a big-hearted man who taught me not just to tolerate but to embrace interfaith relationships by focusing on commonalities rather than differences. My life would be much less rich without memories of childhood Christmases, my wonderful marriage, and SpokaneFAVS. Merry Chrismukkah, everyone!
“A surprising number of American Jews decorate Christmas trees in addition to lighting menorahs, spinning dreidels, and frying up latkes. (In case you’re unaware, those are Hanukkah things.)”
This really surprised me because it’s the exact opposite of our experience. In my experience, that just doesn’t happen in observant homes. We’ve lived all across the US and even among the non-observant Jews I’ve known, having a tree is extremely rare. I’ve actually only known two families that identify as Jewish and have decorated trees in their homes.
Our experiences, however, are similar when it comes to the war on “Happy Holidays,” though. That seems to have become so much more vicious in the past 20 years or so. As a kid, I don’t remember people getting so upset about being wished a happy everything vs. a specific holiday. I grew up in the Northeast, though. So maybe that plays a part. Wishing a “Happy holidays” seems like a respectful way to cover all the impending holidays. Even those who celebrate Christmas have the secular new year soon after.
Happy holidays and Chanukah sameach, Neal.
Well, technically “a surprising number” would probably be any number greater than, say, a few dozen. Depends who’s being surprised.