Posted on 12/10/2014 7:08:45 PM PST by Former Fetus
We Jews have two choices in our approach to the Christmas season: resent it or embrace it. I for one vote for a big, sloppy embrace. In the name of love thy neighbor and tolerance, I say we hug it out with Christmas already and teach our kids to do the same.
Why? We expect our non-Jewish co-workers, friends and neighbors to show heaps of interest and concern in all things Jewish. During the High Holidays we ask our kids’ teachers not to assign big tests after those long days at shul. We offer unsolicited explanations about why Hanukkah is not, despite unfortunate evidence to the contrary, the most important event on our calendar. For the week of Passover we bore everyone we know with the reasons we’re eating matzah and other weird stuff. (Yes, gentile co-worker, that “Kosher for Passover” salad dressing seems over the top to me, too.)
Tolerance is a two-way street. It would be chutzpadik and a bad example to our kids not to muster up some genuine interest in a holiday celebrated by a significant majority of our fellow citizens. So with that being said …
10 steps to lose the attitude at Christmas
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.timesofisrael.com ...
Chag Chanukkah Sameach
Basically our Christmas has been secularized, with respect to public display. Christmas trees - secular. Santa Claus - secular. Christmas lights on houses - secular. Gift-giving - secular. Silly movies like "Christmas Vacation"; "Christmas with the Kranks"; "The Santa Clause" - all secular.
Almost all the Christmas music played on the radio such as "Jingle Bells", "Jingle Bell Rock", "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer", "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree", "Do They Know It's Christmas", "Happy Xmas", "Holly Jolly Christmas", "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" and scores and scores of others - all secular.
So what's the beef?
I have no issue with Hannukah (or however you choose to spell it) with all their Menorahs and Dradles and their Adam Sandler songs and their "8 CRAZY nights". Bring it on! Bring it on! I'm not offended in the slightest.
To all my Jewish friends, Merry Christmas and:
I have an idea. Why don’t Jews do a outreach Hanukkah dinner. Invite a Christian over for a Hanukkah meal and outreach to them why you do what you do.
Then maybe, that Christian (or Christian family, couple, etc..) can do a Christmas dinner the next year with a little bit of dietary consideration.
I attend a low keyed shooting competition, campout, drunkfest, and BBQ where one of the guys keeps Kosher. Not a problem says we, the next year we created Kosher versions of nearly everything we cooked. To include being prepared on completely separate grills.
Since I was a kid my favorite Christmas song...BY FAR...has been "Little Drummer Boy".Almost 60 years later it can *still* bring a tear to my eye.Not all all secular.But your point is well taken,Christmas is far,far,*far* too commercial.
I wrapped presents already. My daughter asked why all the paper was blue, white and silver, and not red and green. I said it was to match our tree that’s decorated in blue, white and silver so it would all look pretty. “Why are we having a Jewish Christmas?” I really don’t understand why I’ve been mistaken multiple times over my life for being Jewish.
My all-time favorite version of that song. It's haunting and it grows on you over time.
I used to attend a seder dinner held by a very liberal jewish woman and would often thank her for not “dumbing it down to a ‘holiday’ party.”
Look on the bright side. Is there any other day of the year when all the goyim in your neighborhood are celebrating the birth of some Jewish guy?
To lose the Christmas blues, try a reading of: Genesis 1:26, 3:15 and 3:22, pondering why G_d is in the plural.
Follow this by reading:
Genesis 12:3 and Matthew 1:1;
Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:18–23;
Genesis 17:19, Numbers 24:17 and Matthew 1:2;
Micah 5:2 and Luke 2:1–7;
Hosea 11:1 and Matthew 2:13–15;
Genesis 49:10 and Luke 3:33;
Malachi 3:1 and Luke 2:25–27;
Jeremiah 23:5 and Matthew 1:6;
Jeremiah 31:15 and Matthew 2:16;
Psalm 22:16; Psalm 16:10; Isaiah 53:10–11; Psalm 68:18; Psalm 110:1. Fulfilled: 1 Peter 2:21–22; Luke 23:33; Acts 2:25–32; Acts 1:9; Hebrews 1:3.
Afterwards, a prayer to YHWH to clarify all that you’ve read may help you out of the Christmas blues.
At the time of Pesach, in addition to reading in Genesis, try reading Psalm 16, Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 followed by John 19:33, John 20:25, Matthew 27:35, Luke 13:34, 2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 Peter 2:23, Matthew 27:57–60, Mark 15:27, Acts 2:24 and Acts 13:33–35, and finally John 5:39. Again, ask YHWH to help you process all that you’ve read.
That’s what we are doing. Introducing Christians to Hanukah.
I tell them that the Christian Bible does not once mention “Christmas” - but right there in John 10, it has Jesus celebrating Hanukah.
Bingo! I’m leaning towards trying to celebrate the feasts and also attempting to follow the Sabbath as well as I can.
Sabbath is difficult because of my variable work schedule.
Clarification: I’m NOT Jewish. But I follow a Jewish carpenter and His Jewish disciples, that’s why I am so interested in anything Jewish.
Funny, I have been mistaken for being Jewish many times, and not only on this Forum. I still remember in 1980, I was returning to Madrid, Spain to spend the summer with my parents. At JFK I was about to miss the plane to Madrid and I asked an airport employee for help. He said “no problem”, sat me on an electric cart and zoomed down the terminal to my gate. As I was getting off the cart, he said “have a good time in Tel Aviv!” Because of my curly black hair (a perm), olive skin, and my accent, he thought I was Israeli! Thank goodness he mentioned Tel Aviv or I might have got in the wrong plane! LOL
LOL. I’m about as WASP as one can be (Mayflower descendant) but somehow have been like an adopted child- Jewish college, boyfriend, neighborhood, family by marriage.... It’s probably my diet and Yiddish. So I lived next to a temple for 3+ years- purely coincidental. I’m positive it has nothing to do with me acting like a Jewish American Princess. Nothing.
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