The December Dilemma

[lavendersparkle]

I really have to thank cathedral_life for pointing me in the direction of the Fifty Percenters Blog. I might blog about it more later. I particularly liked the post The Christmas Tree Debate is a Distraction. Go read the original post but if you really can't here's a quote which sums a lot of it up:
"if my children's sense of Jewish identity was so fragile that

Comments

[naath]

I found this very interesting. Thank you for sharing your perspective.

Thanks for this!

[ext_218194]

I really enjoyed this response to my post, and I take your point that looking to secularism isn't necessarily always the answer. (In my own case that's what we're working with, but I definitely have interfaith friends where both partners are religious and there is a mutual respect for each other's practices that really binds their relationship.)

Funny about the "December dilemma" talks in conversion classes. I know I referenced a similar scenario in my post, and it makes me feel kind of crazy to note just how single-note that discussion seems to be within the Jewish community. So I am grateful that there are some of us out there offering different perspectives! Christmas: it's really not that difficult.

Best
Hannah

[girlofthemirror]

That really was a particularly interesting post. We actually have something very similar between Steph and I. I am an atheist raised C of E and I consider myself to be very culturally Christian. To me that means celebrating Christmas and Easter and friends weddings/christenings in a "C of E"-ish way. Steph is an American and a Presbyterian who goes to church and believes in things.

We have 2 separate things that need thinking about - Is Christmas a religious or cultural or secular festival. Also is it done in an English or an American tradition? It actually makes a surprising amount of difference. For both of us Christmas has been a centrally important thing to our families and it is amazing how it can be an issue even without adding any other religions to the mix! It has never been a point of argument for us but making plans does end up a bit weird and complicated as we try to fit around lots of different things.

[anonymous]

The last point reminded me that two people who believe more-or-less the same things can have even more intractable disagreements about Christmas. K and I are both practising Anglicans (of a vaguely Anglo-Catholic bent), therefore Christmas means a lot to us as a religious as well as cultural festival. EXCEPT, K's German mother chose to use Christmas as the primary means of transmitting a semi-German identity, which means that she thinks the main bit of Christmas is on Christmas eve...I am equally convinced that Christmas begins with stockings on Christmas morning.

I suppose the point I am trying to make is that it can be as hard to reconcile small differences in the same thing than big differences between two quite different things. At least that is my (admittedly limited) experience.

I do like the stollen and the German carols though.

Sal

[miriya_b]

"March/April Logistical Nightmare"--love it! well, the phrase anyway: I guess there's not so much that's lovable about "coming up with a week's worth of kosher l'Pesach food and not being able to travel on certain days or eat out at all, all at the same time as your spouse is experiencing the most important festival of his religious year and your relatives want you to visit them and and eat non-kosher l'Pesach sweeties" or "Alec trying to mourn the death of his Messiah whilst I'm running around in fancy dress getting drunk and eating far too many biscuits