I'm in a cantankerous mood over at Los Angeles and 50-Something Moms Blogs today. The topic: the ever-earlier beginning of the holiday season.
It's a short post that only touches upon my very mixed feelings about the December holidays. It's short because -- as usual -- I spent Thanksgiving at my sister's home in the Sacramento area, and she doesn't look kindly on it when I hover over my computer when I should be socializing with the family. So the post was dashed off very quickly on Saturday (while she was in the shower).
In that post, I remarked on the fact that the soundtrack of our Thanksgiving meal was a selection of Christmas carols, and this struck me as a little bit strange. For one thing, I don't take my Christmas stuff out of storage until AFTER Thanksgiving. But that brings us to the other thing: We're Jewish.
As a Jewish American, I have always had a strange relationship with the Christmas season. When we were kids, it felt like the entire country was having a party and we weren't invited.
Of course, that's not really how it went. We had our own celebration: Chanukah, which is a nice little holiday. But even a fully lit menorah doesn't hold a candle to the seductive glitz and glitter of an American Christmas, with its shiny ornaments and lights and holly and wreaths and bells and Santa Claus... and all those presents.
It is possible to enjoy the holiday season in America when you're not a Christian - but sometimes you're walking a very fine line. We were not one of those families that put up a tree and called it a "Chanukah Bush." However, we fully participated in our schools' holiday programs (which were allowed to be all about Christmas back then). And while that's where I learned to love Christmas carols, I never felt quite right singing some of them in school choir. My 9-year-old self was so afraid G-d would strike me down if I actually sang all the words in "O Come All Ye Faithful" that I would merely lip sync "Christ the Lord" at the end.
We opened presents on Chanukah from my parents and grandparents, but there was still the matter of Christmas Day, which can be kind of lonely if you're not invited to enjoy a meal with your friends or neighbors. Most years, my parents would look for some way to distract us: A trip to Disneyland.
Read the rest of this post on my review blog here.
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