wait. Is the first night of Christmas and Hanukkah falling on the same day this year? 25th December! Thank God! At the end! Can we please continue this?!
My extended family is a mix of Jews and Catholics, all committed to their own customs and traditions. Finally, we can stop running to different houses to celebrate different holidays on different days. I deeply appreciate this divine operational efficiency.
In my house, I’ve made a few 360s over the years. I was raised in a Jewish family, but I early internalized my mother’s unspoken edict that any visible signs of Judaism must be Jewish. , , Gosh. (Psst!) Was it because her family fled Germany and Hungary for Hartford and Ohio and were forced to assimilate? Perhaps. but still.
A mezuzah?! Absolutely No.
Hora dance? Oh no, no, no. Instead, my mother sent me to ballroom dancing school. White gloves required.
My Jewish mother grew up too with a christmas treeOne tradition stuck with me until I married another Jew who found the practice offensive.
I traded my glittering Christmas ornaments — a baked, painted wreath, a red glitter ball with my name on it surrounded by ivy, a gold, tin Jewish star I made at sleepaway camp — for a shiny engagement ring. Gave.
The sentimental sounds of scratchy Christmas records disappeared as I sank into the stuffed stockings. Instead, as a young mother, I carefully sorted gifts for Hanukkah into eight piles: at least one gift for each of my four children each night. Inevitably, on any given night at least one child was disappointed. And my brain was fried.
I remembered the tree. I missed the simplicity of a big pile of gifts. I remembered milk and cookies for Santa. I missed being a kid myself. I missed the ceremony of adding the star to the top of the tree, the lollipop Mrs. Claus ornament was swaying as we wrestled with it.
I even missed the conversations on the sidewalk about buying trees, which my dad always made a business lesson of.
Thanks to those cool roadside evenings, I still feel a jolt of pride whenever I manage to reduce the price of something.
I also missed seeing “Santa” written in the “From” section of my mom’s gift stickers. Of course, I pretended not to see the resemblance. That’s what the Christmas holidays teach us, isn’t it? suspension of disbelief.
I mean, there’s a stranger coming down our chimney on a sleigh in manhattandid we too to pass chimneys? Who was stopping the old man from going inside? Other nights? what was stopping you Any Once inside, can this intruder laden with gifts slip down whenever he wants? Perhaps the Jews were very curious about that long story.
My father remarried a Catholic woman for whom Christmas was non-negotiable. Then my brother also did the same.
Christmas is back in our lives their Home: A giant tree in my dad’s lobby, with a different theme every year; A shaking pine tree at my brother’s house on the West Coast that I sometimes decorated with my niece and nephew.
My old ornaments came to life as I carefully placed them on the thorny, forest-scented branches, hoping that the weight of the ornament would not drag it across the needle-strewn floor. Family Traditions: Maintained!
hanukkah at homeChristmas Chez Vous,
Then one year, when we went to my dad’s to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah, there was a new arrival: a Hanukkah tee-pee! Inside the white, tall teepee (think: Pottery Barn Kids) were blue, white and silver wrapped gifts in a big pile, all of our gifts were mixed up so we had to dive through it to find ours.
“Mom! It’s yours!” Before we all lit the Hanukkah candles together, my son yelled from deep down the slope, the tree towering just ahead of him.
Even after I got divorced and remarried to a Catholic (who is) with Us!?), Family Traditions Rewritten He Brought back Christmas. And yet, over the years I have become a much more observant Jew.
I was looking forward to lighting the Shabbat candles on Friday All Jewish holidays, and being part of the Jewish community. (I also recently edited an entire collection called “Now on Being Jewish” Since I’m trying to fight the rising wave of anti-Semitism.)
I didn’t want to leave him. Plus, all the kids were at Hebrew school with their bar and bat mitzvahs in the planner.
My husband offered to convert to Judaism (what nonsense!) and then adopted all our customs. But His The family, with whom I quickly became close, still watched.
The trees were back. Now, each year, we go to not only my dad and my brother’s, but also his dad and stepmom for a Secret Santa gift exchange. their tree, before inviting them all over to our place for Hanukkah. It’s a logistical hurdle during the Super Bowl of motherhood.
related to My Mother? She remarried 20 years ago to another Jew and also gave up her tree.
She’s become more religious as she’s gotten older, although I think she’s still a little intimidated by the mezuzah on my front door. (Yes, if Santa takes the elevator, this is the first thing he’ll see.)
And yet, since October there has been a huge increase in anti-Semitism. 7, especially as evidenced in the soon-to-be-released documentary “October H8TE” (my husband and I are associate producers), being Jewish is complicated now. I have personally doubled (quadrupled!?) my Jewish identity.
I wear a Jewish star necklace. I started On Being Jewish Now on Substack, editing original essays and speaking around the world to unite the tribe. I have become a casual worker, something I could not have seen coming.
When I heard the Hanukkah story at my children’s school assembly about the destruction of a synagogue in Melbourne, Australia, just days after a synagogue burned down, I felt the relevance of the holiday more than ever.
Sure, we exchange gifts, but Hanukkah is really about never forgetting the past and believing in the power of our community to overcome whatever comes our way.
I can see why doing this was heralded as a miracle during the Second Temple period two millennia ago. We can use another one now that we’ve torn the wrapping paper to pieces and stopped the atrocities.
Like many others, my family is a patchwork quilt of Jewish stars and Catholic crosses united by a deep devotion to tradition, family, and customs. The fact that it all falls on the same day this year? Hallelujah.
Zibby Owens is USA TODAY Bestsellers Editor “On Being Jewish Now: Thoughts from Authors and Advocates” And five other books. follow him substack And Instagram @zibbyowens,
