Jews often find Christmas to be one of the most boring days of the year. Almost everything is closed, most of your friends are busy, and TV sucks.
As a child, we engaged in what we called “Jewish Christmas.”
I don’t mean Chanukkah. Only the uninformed equate the eight day Festival of Lights to Christmas. A relatively minor Jewish holiday, Chanukkah only achieved prominence for its proximity to Christmas.
Chanukkah is not a very important religious holiday. The holiday’s religious significance is far less than that of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Passover, and Shavu’ot. It is roughly equivalent to Purim in significance, and you won’t find many non-Jews who have even heard of Purim! Chanukkah is not mentioned in Jewish scripture; the story is related in the book of Maccabees, which Jews do not accept as scripture.
For most of my pre-teen years, I’d eat Chinese food with my grandparents, mother, and sister on Christmas and then my mom, sister, and I would head out to the movies. That is a Jewish Christmas!
I don’t remember most of the movies except for the magical 1978 Christmas screening of Superman: The Movie. Only a dozen people or so attended the showing!
As I entered my teen years, I started spending Christmas with my gentile friends. Then later with my Christian girlfriends. After I married my first wife, we always spent the holiday with her Catholic family.
After our divorce, I took up the tradition once again with friends.
When I first explained this idea to Brandy, she’d never heard of the concept. All it took was one Jewish Christmas and it became our annual tradition. We may not always eat Chinese food (sometimes fittingly enough Jewish food instead) or see a movie (though we often do), but we always have a fun, relaxing holiday. There is no other way I’d rather spend the day.
(Sadly this year, Brandy developed a stomach bug, so we didn’t go out to eat or see a movie. We’ve promised each other Chinese food –hopefully dim sum– and a movie before the end of the year.)
