melding traditions

It’s the second night of Hannukah, and here’s a scene I never thought I’d have a picture of in MY kitchen:

We are trying to give our children a balance of our two backgrounds, mine being Jewish and my husband’s being a non-denominational somewhat Christian background. That is to say, he’s not into religion but his family has always celebrated Christmas. This is a difficult holiday for this Jewish girl to embrace, as it’s basically the ideological dividing point between Jews and Christians. I’m not very religious, but I do have a bit of guilt about celebrating Christmas. I was raised to understand that Jewish children just don’t celebrate Christmas, and I never felt left out. I actually felt special because we had this unique holiday that no one else did. I loved latkes and dreidles and not having to wait until Dec 25th to open my gifts, because Hannukah usually precedes Christmas. And, my great grandfather was a rabbi. And let’s face it, Jewish guilt comes naturally to me!

Either way, we are trying to emphasize Hannukah and Christmas on alternating years. This year it’s Christmas. So, I am lighting the candles and exposing Maya to the bracha (prayer/blessing) since she’s now old enough to say it. But really we’re engaging in all kinds of Western Christmas traditions like decorating the the tree, making gingerbread houses and of course educating our daughter about the whole Santa story. I don’t love it. In fact, I kind of dislike it. The whole holiday frenzy that everyone gets into, the consumerism that creates the obligation to buy buy buy, the pressure to get up a tree and lights and cook a huge dinner on this one day. Don’t get me wrong, the tree is nice and I love turkey dinners, but as an adult who doesn’t have any of the feelings of nostalgia for my own childhood Christmas joy (since there was no Christmas in our house), I tend to feel like it’s all a big hassle and very artificial.

Still, I want to do this for my husband and his family. Afterall, Christmas is as important to them as my traditions are to me. Embracing both backgrounds is difficult. Especially because I want Maya to see herself as a Jew and embrace her Jewish heritage as I have done, but how do I do that without discounting my husband’s background? I know I must support his traditions as much as mine, and I do. But it is hard… harder than I imagined it would be.