My mother-in-law flew in from Iowa yesterday and this afternoon is going to fly back with my boys. My husband and I will join them there on Friday for our annual Christmas celebration. For those of you who are confused, I was raised Jewish, my kids are being raised Jewish, but my husband is Lutheran. So every year we get to go and enjoy the tree, the stockings, the baked goods (oh the baked goods!) the gifts and the snow of an Iowa Christmas. It is truly wonderful.
I remember as children Eric and I were always jealous of our friends who had Christmas trees and Christmas presents. It always seemed like they got a lot more presents than we did, but I think really they just got more on one day, whereas ours were spread out. Still I was always jealous of the carols and the decorations everywhere you looked. I’m still very conscious that this is not my tradition, but I am happy that I get to share it with my husband and his family.
I sometimes worry about my kids growing up confused about where they fit in since we do honor both traditions (they get Easter stuff too), but that is why we started the oldest in religious school at kindergarten and the youngest goes to a Jewish preschool. Hopefully, in time, they’ll be able to reconcile the differences and have a strong Jewish identity.
Somehow, being raised in the same house by the same parents, I developed a Jewish identity (culturally if not terribly observant), but Eric did not. He was always questioning and looking and finally found that Christianity was the answer for him. He probably wouldn’t have approved of celebrating both holidays, although he never said anything. I think he needed something with rules and structure that made sense to him. Trying to bridge the divide would be too messy, too uncertain.
I’m glad he found something that he was happy with, but I have found that life is messy. There are no clear cut answers, so I’m doing the best with what I have. And if that means celebrating both Chanukah and Christmas, so be it.
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