Interfaith families raising Jewish kids -- talk to me about the December dilemma

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could just disassociate Santa and Christmas with religion. We are a non religious family but celebrate Christmas. It is just a fun holiday.

Sorry but this does not work for most Jewish families.

I've known lots of Jewish families that have celebrated Christmas when they're kids were young. Santa and Christmas trees aren't part of Christianity. Sometimes they did a small tree, but usually, they just gave kids a gift "from Santa."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could just disassociate Santa and Christmas with religion. We are a non religious family but celebrate Christmas. It is just a fun holiday.

Sorry but this does not work for most Jewish families.

OP's is not a Jewish family. her DH is areligious.

[Anonymous]

Keep the focus on Hanukah at your house. Just because you go to a b-day party doesn;t mean it is yor b-day.

I love this line. What a nice way to put it in terms of an experience that children understand.

[Anonymous]

I have a similar perspective from the opposite side. My best friend is Jewish and I have been celebrating Passover with his family for over 30 years, long before I married and had kids. We still celebrate with them. We teach our children that while we are Christian, we have many friends who are Jewish (which we do) and we honor them by celebrating this important holiday with them. While celebrating this holiday, we follow their customs and do what they do. We use it as a lesson in other religions and how to respect people of other religions. You can use the same logic for the December dilemma as you call it. That you are a Jewish family, but that many people you know are Christian and celebrate Christmas. That you and they should be respectful of the other people's religion. We teach our children a little bit about Judaism the week of Passover. You can teach your children a little about Christianity during Christmas and how to be respectful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Keep the focus on Hanukah at your house. Just because you go to a b-day party doesn;t mean it is yor b-day.

I love this line. What a nice way to put it in terms of an experience that children understand.

Yes, this is perfect. Explain that Christmas is a holiday that grandparents, aunts, uncles, whomever, celebrate, and it is nice to celebrate with people we love. We are Jewish, DH and I and our parents and (single) siblings, but I have first cousins that are Christian (or actually, athiests/agnostics who default to Christian holidays, but whatever). One of my cousins has kids my age and they came to visit over Passover/Easter this year. They didn't eat bread while they were here since we were observing Passover and it was our home, but the Easter bunny did come and bring their Easter baskets. And because the Easter bunny is a nice being, he also brought Easter baskets for my children, who were thrilled with the novelty (and the junk). They were old enough (6 and 9) to understand that we were helping our cousins celebrate, and it was likely a one-time occurrence. While in your case it seems that this will happen year after year, all that means is that it will give you a chance to reinforce respecting other people's religions and celebrations, while at the same time being clear that while you love Grandma and Grandpa and are happy to be able to share their holiday celebrations with them, they are not your holidays.

[Anonymous]

Keep in mind that "Santa" isn't even Christian in the sense that it's not part of the original Christmas story and not found anywhere in the Bible.

Saint Nicholas was a benevolent King and the modern Santa Claus comes from an english poem about Saint Nicholas.

It's certainly originally identified with Christianity, but there's no reason in the modern world why Christians need to claim it and other religions need to reject it.

Do Jewish parents not let their kids go trick or treating either? That's "all hallow's eve," originally, and is associated with two church holidays - all souls day and all saints day.

Perhaps it's time to liberate Santa from Christianity and just make him a fun temporary make-believe friend to all kids. Unlike doctrinal religious beliefs, kids are actively discouraged from believing in santa past the age of 7. Why not let all kids enjoy whatever short-term fantasies they can - tooth fairy, easter bunny (also not biblical), Santa, etc.... as long as they are fun, not harmful and kids grow out of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BTW..Easter/Passover is much more complicated to explain to a young child.

Actually, it isn't. My 4 year old has a rudimentary understanding of Passover, and we've done seders with him since he was 1. There are kid-appropriate ways to do the passover seder-- we have toys and books, etc.

[Anonymous]

I'm a PP who has a complicated situation too, and thank you to the poster who compared it to a birthday! This actually helps me come to terms in my own mind with juggling both sides of the family.

And I do remember reading in the Jewish Book of Why (which has an extremely traditional viewpoint) that Jews are indeed allowed to attend Christmas celebrations for Christians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BTW..Easter/Passover is much more complicated to explain to a young child.

Actually, it isn't. My 4 year old has a rudimentary understanding of Passover, and we've done seders with him since he was 1. There are kid-appropriate ways to do the passover seder-- we have toys and books, etc.

Ha! Passover, complicated? It boils down to one line: "we were slaves and now we're free." Also a significant part of the seder is explicitly about how to explain the story to kids and people at different levels of understanding/intelligence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could just disassociate Santa and Christmas with religion. We are a non religious family but celebrate Christmas. It is just a fun holiday.

Which other religious holidays does your not-religious family celebrate? Ramadan? Yom Kippur?

Easter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could just disassociate Santa and Christmas with religion. We are a non religious family but celebrate Christmas. It is just a fun holiday.

Which other religious holidays does your not-religious family celebrate? Ramadan? Yom Kippur?

Easter.

With easter baskets, I bet and not stories about christ's resurrection.

[Anonymous]

We celebrate both. Menorah and Christmas Tree have been out since last wekeend (of cource the menorah is not lit but the tree sure is). We visited Santa and are looking forward to Hanukkah! I don't see a reason not to do both. That said we talk about the miracle at Hannukah and other religious aspects but we do treat Christmas as a secular holiday. We don't talk about the birth of Jesus. So maybe it is more correct to say we celebrate Hanukkah and Santa Clause coming to town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BTW..Easter/Passover is much more complicated to explain to a young child.

Actually, it isn't. My 4 year old has a rudimentary understanding of Passover, and we've done seders with him since he was 1. There are kid-appropriate ways to do the passover seder-- we have toys and books, etc.

Ha! Passover, complicated? It boils down to one line: "we were slaves and now we're free." Also a significant part of the seder is explicitly about how to explain the story to kids and people at different levels of understanding/intelligence.

and keep in mind that it is a story, without any archeological or historical evidence to back it up. Jewish Academics have come up empty-handed on the exodus but have found plenty of evidence that ancient hebrews lived in ancient Israel all along.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Unearthed

[Anonymous]

We are interfaith and celebrate both. Please check out The Interfaith Families Project (IFFP). We are a group of over 100 families that meet in a school in Maryland and run a full interfaith Sunday school for children ages 3 through 13 plus have a wonderful spiritual community with a rabbi and minister. We now love celebrating both and our three children would not have it any other way but having a robust Jewish and Christian community that meets regularly helps a lot. You can find us on the Internet and please come visit for our gathering and sit in on our Sunday school class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We celebrate both. Menorah and Christmas Tree have been out since last wekeend (of cource the menorah is not lit but the tree sure is). We visited Santa and are looking forward to Hanukkah! I don't see a reason not to do both. That said we talk about the miracle at Hannukah and other religious aspects but we do treat Christmas as a secular holiday. We don't talk about the birth of Jesus. So maybe it is more correct to say we celebrate Hanukkah and Santa Clause coming to town.

And I bet there are families doing the opposite -- talking about the miracle of Christ's birth and lighting Hanukkah candles without religious context.

It will be interesting to see how children exposed to religious/cultural practices in this way will react when they are parents.