Christmas? Nope, not anymore.

Someone asked me the other night if I was ready for Christmas. Without hesitation I answered that we are Jewish and don’t celebrate Christmas. This might not seem remarkable in and of itself, but for me it is huge. I converted to Judaism about 10 years ago – my husband is Jewish and while he never asked me to convert, this was something that I felt I needed to do, for me. When I converted, I said it was with the understanding that we would have to do Christmas. My husband accepted this, even though the idea of Santa, a tree and presents all seemed very foreign to him. (Tell me about it… have you ever seen a plate full of gefilte fish??)

Anyway, over the last 10 years, Christmas has been the most stressful of holidays for me. It seemed like it didn’t fit, and it felt very lonely. I ended up doing it all myself, and the parts that my husband helped with, he really didn’t feel any connection to. Part of me felt frustrated that I was not having Christmas in way I had imagined I would with my children. But part of me was also feeling more and more of a connection to the Jewish holidays as I did them and learned about them, and it seemed unimaginable (yet strangely fitting) when this year I realized that Christmas just didn’t work for me at all anymore.

I told a friend the other day that I am at the point now where the deluge of Christmas everywhere I go just feels awful. I was at Stanford Shopping Center today and there was no mistaking that Christmas is a national holiday. (Don’t get me started on the Mike Huckabee ad I heard about today.)  Seriously, though, I don’t want to take the joy out of Christmas for anyone, nor make anyone feel badly for celebrating a holiday that really does have so much magic about it. I loved Christmas as a kid…it was the highlight of my year and I remember that feeling fondly.

But it is new for me this year, this way of seeing things. I have never experienced Christmas thru the eyes of someone that is not a part of it, and it feels odd and a bit uncomfortable to not be in the majority. There are bits and pieces here and there of generic ‘holiday’ things, politically correct things that have become the norm, and possibly some Hanukkah or Kwanzaa items, but really it is all about Christmas.

My friend said to me that this used to really bother her also. But she has moved to the point of acceptance and feels confident enough in who she is that it doesn’t matter that she is in the minority at this time of year. Life is a process and there is never any one right answer, nor one right way to hold on to forever. I am proud of myself for getting to the point where I am today, and I hope that with each Christmas I feel a bit less and less like such a scrooge. And who knows, maybe one year I will even decide to try the dreaded gefilte fish.