The December Dilemma
“Why doesn’t Santa come to visit us?” our youngest asked the other day. Flummoxed for an answer we hastily said “well we don’t have a chimney (it’s been blocked up)”, to which he responded “but the neighbour upstairs has one?”.
There’s no doubt that we are in the lead up to Christmas, even the weather this year has conspired to make it look like a classic Christmas card. It can be a wonderful time of the year, but it also can come with a lot of tension and issues, if you have to negotiate a balance between the two festivals and family traditions. For some households one partner did grow up doing Christmas, for others you might have children who desperately want a Christmas tree or likes the idea of Santa, even if you don’t actually celebrate Christmas at home.
For some, having a Christmas tree feels right for their family setup. For others it becomes a point of conflict or at least unease or resentment. It can be really hard to accept its place in the living room, even if the reasons for having it are for the sake of shalom bayit (peace in the home). Tips for Interfaith Parents is a good article to help navigate some of these issues.
One reaction to the prevalence of Christmas decorations, gifts, food and songs has been to compete and make Chanukah as glitzy as possible, with Chanukah PJs and jumpers with flashing Chanukiahs, lots of decorations, and Spotify Chanukah song lists on repeat.
Another reaction is what is nicknamed Christmukkah, usually symbolised by a star of David or menorah on the top of the Christmas tree, blending the two festivals.
Chanukah is actually an insignificant festival in the Jewish calendar; it is post biblical, it's a minor celebration, it is not even a chag/yontef, and yet it has become the lynchpin for a majority/minority clash. Most of the year we rarely feel the conflict or tension between minority and majority culture and religion, we do not stand out or do things vastly different from the majority, but Christmas is one of the rare times when we are clearly and visibly a minority and that can be very hard to handle, especially for children and young people.
We all react differently to the issue of Christmas, but as a wise colleague once said, the tension for Jews around Christmas is actually a misnomer. What matters is not what we do or don’t do at this time of the year, but rather what we do at Pesach, at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and on Shabbat. Those times of the year are the ones that truly matter, the stories of freedom and creation, of renewal of ourselves and our bond to the world around us.
Rather than trying to find a suitable answer to why Santa doesn't visit our house, we focus instead on reading Chanukah books and stories. We have a box of homemade Chanukah decorations that the kids love to put up, and we browse PJ Library Hanukkah Hub or MJL’s Hanukkah Archives for new ideas, and use Spotify playlists to create a mood of the festival without going overboard. We cannot compete with Christmas, but I don’t think we have to. Each of us finds a balance in what we do at home, remembering that the most important values are shalom bayit and remembering the festivals that are truly important to us.