December is always a busy month as families make winter break plans for themselves and their kids. For most of us, Christmas decorations go up, tree lots appear, and Santa shows up at the mall—all part of the festivities of the holidays. For families that don’t celebrate Christmas, however, December can be a challenging month.
Our family celebrates Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights. There is no Christmas tree at our house (no decorated Hanukkah bush as an equivalent either), no Christmas lights, and no Christmas presents. Because it’s part of our tradition, we emphasize the uniqueness of Hanukkah and the message behind the holiday to support the specialness of to celebrating it. The tradition of giving and receiving presents for eight nights helps.
Hanukkah is based on the story of Jews in the second century BCE who were living in Jerusalem under Greek rule. The king wanted the Jews to worship Greek gods, so he banned their religious worship and took control of their sacred temple in Jerusalem. Led by Judah Maccabee and his brothers, the Jews rebelled and eventually regained control of the temple. To signal triumph over the temple and rally the people to keep fighting, they lit a lamp in the window with just enough oil to last one day—but it lasted for eight days, which was deemed a miracle. To commemorate the victory and the resilience of the Jewish people, Hanukkah became a holiday.
The message behind Hanukkah is that all people deserve the freedom to be who they are and observe their beliefs with the larger community.
So, we light candles on a menorah (candelabra) each night of Hanukkah and put an electric one in the window for all to see. We eat foods fried in oil like latkes (potato pancakes) and donuts. We give our daughter one or more gifts on each night of Hanukkah. And our family gets together with relatives and other families to celebrate together. My wife and I do our best to make our daughter’s experience unique in the hope that she feels pride in these traditions.
Yet, Christmas-related activities abound, and as parents, we have to make tough decisions on how much to compromise. For example, can she go to someone’s house for tree decorating? Can she make Christmas-related crafts? Can she sing Christmas carols in a performance? Can she participate in a Secret Santa gift exchange? How does she respond when asked by someone, “What do you want for Christmas?”
So much of our American culture is tied to these kinds of activities that are separate from the religious aspect of Christmas. As parents, we ask ourselves how much we should limit our daughter’s participation in Christmas activities, and will too much of that exposure hamper our efforts to instill the Jewish traditions we want her to embrace? These are not easy decisions.
The message of Hanukkah is related to personal freedom, extolling pluralism but opposing assimilation, and it’s a message we try to model year-round. Because our experience of celebrating in December is different from others, we encourage supporting people others see as different. My wife and I have many LGBT+ friends and have communicated early that we treat every couple the same regardless of their gender identity. Several times, she has come to our place of work at the university and met students who are transgender, so she became conscious of people who are transgender. She also has a music teacher this year who happens to be transgender.
My wife and I have brought our daughter to a wide variety of cultural events because we want her to recognize the rich diversity of our community. The underlying message to her is that you can believe what you want, you can eat the foods you want, you can speak the languages you want, and you can love who you want because all of this freedom is what creates our American fabric. Our family has our traditions and other people have theirs. It’s important to us that our daughter appreciates what makes us the same but also what makes us different.
Despite hard decisions, our family will still go out to see Christmas lights on houses, eat the Christmas cookies we are given, and enjoy the Christmas carols we hear because it’s just fun. At the same time, we will decorate for Hanukkah, eat latkes more than once during the holiday (so delicious!), and listen to Hanukkah music. I appreciate that our family has the freedom to observe our traditions alongside those in our community who celebrate other holidays. I hope that during this holiday season, other families recognize that freedom too.
Happy holidays!
Robert (Rob) S. WeisskircH, MSW, Ph.D., CFLE, is a Professor of Human Development at California State University, Monterey Bay, and is a Certified Family Life Educator. He and his wife are parents to a chatty, elementary school-aged daughter and reside in Marina.
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