Our Thanksgiving feast is barely digested and we are already being served a smorgasbord of Christmas sounds, sights and sales — lots of sales.
A little more than a week from now we will have a small respite with eight days of Chanukah. But once that ends, the strains of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas” are enough to send reindeer clattering through our brains.
How do we as Jews deal with these constant reminders of a holiday that is not ours? How do we avoid joining in the chorus? How do we keep our nights free of “Silent Night”?
These are the questions rabbis and other Jewish leaders deal with every year at this time. We Jews call it the December dilemma. It’s a dilemma because all around us it seems that everybody is “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree.”
We need to remember and to teach our children that Christmas is our neighbors’ holiday, and not ours. It’s like going to a friend’s birthday party. The party is his; the gifts are his. You can enjoy his party. But when it ends, you go home, and the birthday boy keeps the toys.
If that’s not enough to convince kids, remind them that we Jews have far more holidays than our neighbors. We can and should build a sukkah with our kids. Our Passover seder is as sumptuous as any Christmas dinner, and sending the kids on an afikomen hunt is a must. We put costumes on and eat hamantaschen on Purim. We enjoy blintzes at Shavuot. The list of Jewish holidays and festive traditions go on and on.
Christmas is a religious holiday as well. But that gets lost amid the parties, spending and gift-giving. Regardless of what it’s turned into, Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus. But few Jews stop to think about that. Unfortunately, many Christians don’t either. The holiday has become more about “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” than about “The First Noel.”
Christmas is also about carolling and the songs many of us can’t avoid humming.
We can chime in and sing at holiday parties. We can enjoy the secular classics, like Dickens’ “Christmas Carol.” And we can delight in “The Nutcracker.” We can even munch on fruitcake, if we’re so inclined. But celebrations of Christmas do not belong in our homes, nor should we try to mimic the Christian holiday in any other way.
To our Christian friends, we wish you “A Merry Little Christmas.”
And for all of us, “Let There be Peace on Earth” and “Joy to the World.”