Musings from a former lonely Jew on Christmas

Hi, my name is Rachel, and I’m a Jew who celebrates Christmas.

Growing up, I always felt like I was an outsider to the magic, fun, and celebration of Christmas.

Christmas is such a relentless and pervasive part of American culture. So, I grew up watching Christmas movies, playing Christmas carols in school recitals, and going to the Nutcracker. It was always crammed down my throat. But since we didn’t celebrate it at home, there was always a sense of a permeation of a sad trombone throughout the month of December. I felt like I missed out on some of the best parts, like decorating the tree, baking cookies, being merry and bright… all the fun things that Christians get to do and be.

Sure, we had our own holidays. Sure, getting Chinese food and going to the movie theaters is a fun ritual (sort of)… but I always felt like I was missing out on the good stuff.

As a young adult, I was fortunate to be adopted Into other family’s Christmas celebrations and finally got to experience that magic for myself, for the first time, in my twenties.

And it was like finding the Golden Ticket.

The delectable food, the festive atmosphere, the evergreenery adorning the indoors, vibes of coziness and relaxation, warmth and cheer, bringing extra joy to the people I love, and providing for those who are less fortunate, were all things that I loved and that I decided I would incorporate into my own life.

As I got deeper into winter lore, I found more things to resonate with. Mother Deer, shamanic Santa Claus, and Mother Mary as a parthogenic priestess figure, are all things that I can (and did) get into.

When I became a mom, I decided that we would celebrate Christmas full-on in my household, partly because I didn’t want my child to grow up feeling an outsider to the magic, and partly also to make up for my own childhood longings. Because you get to decide those things when you’re a grownup.

And I’m not the odd one out of my immediate family, either. Now, even most of them celebrate Christmas, too. We all have Christmas-celebrating partners and spouses, so it’s become something of a zeitgeist that we’ve mainstreamed into.

It’s an interesting phenomenon to ponder, that we’ve been pulled into the over-culture — partly by seduction, partly by our chosen family. And partly also because it’s hard to be a holdout and an outsider, especially when there’s no real reason to be anymore. Resistance is futile. Our great-grandparents would likely have been horrified. But we haven’t abandoned where we came from — we’re simply adding to the things to be celebrated.

As much as I love Christmas, I do have somewhat of an ambivalent relationship with it. I still have a bit of a knee-jerk bristle when strangers wish me a Merry Christmas — not because I want to kill Christmas (which is hopefully obvious by this point) but because, as someone who grew up on the outside, I resent the assumption that it’s a holiday that I celebrate. Even though I now do.

I also grumble a tiny bit each year that, as a mom, I’m the one to make all the Christmas magic happen in our household… but I’m the JEWISH mom, so why am I the one to have to make it all happen? Oy, the irony!

Still… there’s no denying that baking cookies, decorating real trees that you can keep in your house for a whole month, and embracing the values of love, charity, and generosity, are all delightful.

If celebrating Christmas is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.