December 24, 2008
Christmas and Hannukah and Festivus…oh my!
Okay, so the last two posts were about all of the many holidays happening right now and how everyone’s experiences are different in this time. So how were/are your holidays?
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Amanda
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This year, my brother got a grocery gift card to buy a turkey from work, so he announced “Hey you can cook a turkey for Christmas!” And then he invited a friend over. So now I’m cooking Christmas dinner for him and his friend (and myself). And I need to clean the whole house. So it’s busy! But it’ll be nice as well. One of the few xmas times I haven’t been back home, so it’s nice to have my brother here. Once it’s over, I have to work work work once again, so I’ll enjoy the change of pace while I can.
Kat S.
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Christmas with my family is fun if you can take the constant and almost always entertaining rants from my psycho-conservative, hard-core Southern Baptist parents about how dissapointed they are in your political and religious(or lack of) affiliations in stride. But, differences asside, I am very blessed with caring family and friends.
Vanessa
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On yule eve my mom’s were married (I know, I know I’ve been screaming about it for the last three months in these comments) then on yule day we had a beautiful family gift giving!
Christmas we do because our grandparents want us to but, it is still fun and sweet.
My grandmother has cancer so this may be the last holiday I have with her. So I am always thankful! We’re very lucky my in family, there are many of us but we all get along and love and support each other. Although our religious and political paths all are drastically different, the 7 of us that are still here create a loving and supportive environment!
Karen
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Wow! Right now this is a loaded question for me. Let me try and make it concise.
I’m Jewish, and I have always celebrated Chanukah and tried my best to ignore Christmas. It’s often very hard to do in the US, and I find myself sitting at home on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with nothing to do except eat Chinese food and go to the movies.
This year, I spent Christmas Day and 7 out of 8 nights of Chanukah in Israel…and what happened was that Christmas passed with barely any recognition and I was able to celebrate Chanukah in the “traditional” way – as a simple holiday with no presents.
For anyone who’s interested in the logistics of celebrating in Israel, the three things I noticed most were:
1) in Hebrew, the letters on a dreidle usually stand for “Nes Gadol Haya Sham” – A Great Miracle Happened There. In Israel, all of the dreidle’s have different letters because they say “A Great Miracle Happened Here” instead.
2) Israeli’s don’t eat latkes for Chanukah. I’m not sure why that is. They also don’t walk around singing Adam Sandler’s Chanukah song like we did.
Vanessa
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What is the third thing?
Karen
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Haha, I totally forgot to write it.
Mostly it’s that people really do put their menorahs in their windows. So when you drive around the cities at night, you see lights coming out of every house. It’s really cool.
And Christmas kind of just…doesn’t feel like it exists.
Andrew Slack
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Karen: that sounds really really both amazing and interesting and I would love to see Israel during Channukah and be in a society where as Jewish, I’m not in the minority (though in college, that was the case). On the other hand, personally I have never tried to pretend that Christmas doesn’t exist as I think it’s one of my favorite things ever. Even though I’m Jewish, growing up my family still did Santa Claus. I think Santa is someone who I believe in so much and I think it’s really wonderful for children to believe in Santa and for adults to believe in the spirit of Santa. I also love the religious undertones of Christmas too. So though I think it would be amazing to be in Israel during Channukah and see those lights coming from the Menorah and the different lettering on the dreidels and all of that, I still want it stated from my perspective as a Jew that I love Christmas so much it’s kind of ridiculous. So Shalom and Merry Christmas and Happy Everything.
Andrew Slack
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P.S. This is not to say to invalidate what you’ve said here at all though! I am so excited to learn more about what it was like in Israel for you and to one day go. Also, I want to recognize that being Jewish for many people, Christmas in the US can feel alienating. And I think this whole idea of there being a war on Christmas because greeters at Wal-Mart say Happy Holidays is so silly. There’s no war on Christmas. But there is a lot of people who aren’t Christian who feel alienated during Christmas. For the most part, I’m not one of them. Christmas has always been such a big part of my life. Whether it’s eating Chinese food and going to the movies with my family or going to a Christian home for Christmas and having wonderful meals and merriment, etc. So I just want to acknowledge that I totally understand and sympathize with where you’re coming from and think that the little I’ve heard so far, your trip sounds absolutely amazing.