The Grinch Who Stole Chanukah

I am experiencing seasonal confusion. My calendar tells me it is December, but yet it’s sunny, about 80 degrees, my hair is adorned with a halo of frizz thanks to the humidity, and I am dressing in tank tops and shorts every day. If not for the Christmas decorations around town, I would assume it was July rather than December. (The Christmas trees and Santa Clauses do seem so incongruent with the warm temps and lack of snow. My friend told me that Santa showed up in shorts today at a kids’ event she was attending.)

While the city of Sydney does a fabulous job of celebrating the imminent Christmas holiday, with Christmas celebrations left and right, little old Chanukah seems to be getting the shaft. My precious holiday is noticeably absent from the beautiful decorations and celebrations around the city. Yes, I did spot a large, lovely menorah in one of the downtown parks. And there was a Chanukah party a few neighborhoods away. But besides that…nothing! Moving to Australia, a multicultural country with a relatively good-sized Jewish population (and the highest proportion of Holocaust survivors per capita in the world outside of Israel), I assumed that Chanukah would have a more noticeable presence, particularly in cosmopolitan Sydney.

Most notable to me is that while I have been wished “Merry Christmas” by strangers more times than I can count, not a single person has wished me “happy holidays,” the more generic holiday greeting that I had become accustomed to living in Boston. Please know that I’m no Scrooge: I think it’s a considerate gesture for someone to wish me a Merry Christmas, and much prefer that gesture to nothing at all. (If you know me, you know I’m a pretty jolly person.) I entirely realize that your intent is to be kind and giving of the holiday spirit. It’s just that Christmas isn’t my holiday and it isn’t the holiday celebrated by many other people in addition to Jews. To me, wishing someone you don’t know a Merry Christmas evidences an assumption that that person celebrates Christmas, which I and lots of others don’t. Call it political correctness or religious tolerance or whatever you like, but when I am wished a “Merry Christmas,” I cannot help feeling a bit marginalized and excluded.

Syd’s final Gymbaroo class was this past Tuesday. Appointed the “Christmas class,” Syd wore adorable reindeer antlers while throwing tinsel on a small Christmas tree and learning the words to Jingle Bells. She (and I) had a blast and I strongly suspect that she and her two-year-old peers had no concept of the religious holiday inspiring their tinsel throwing. This past weekend our neighborhood held its annual “Christmas gathering,” yesterday we spent our neighborhood library StoryTime reading Christmas stories, and Sydney’s playgroup next week is deemed the “Christmas barbeque” (I do realize that Chanukah has ended at the time of writing this.) Soon Syd will be able to sing Jingle Bells with the best of them. I have no problem with her attending these events, and think it’s very important for her to learn about traditions and religious holidays other than her own, but it’d be nice if Chanukah could get a little shout out here or there. And as she grows up and learns that she is part of a religious minority with a long history of persecution (and, um, slaughter), will the exclusion of her religious holiday (or the highlighting of only one in particular) make her too feel marginalized and excluded?

I realize (and respect) that many people, including my close friends, strongly disagree with my viewpoint and think that people who prefer “Happy Holidays” to “Merry Christmas” are making a mountain out of a molehill. Even Facebook has a group aptly named, “All Those Against Saying Happy Holidays Instead of Merry Christmas,” http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8202310162, in which people like me are depicted as Grinches or as somehow attempting to secularize Christmas. I do not support, as people say, “taking the Christ out of Christmas,” and am eager to wish my Christian friends a very Merry Christmas. My feelings and intent are articulated much more eloquently by Deborah Lauter, the Director of Civil Rights for the Anti-Defamation League (my former employer in Boston). In a 2009 op ed in which she discusses the aptly-named “December Dilemma,” she writes:

Religious celebrations of the holidays and expressions of religious belief play a vital role in enriching the personal and spiritual lives of many Americans. They have always done so and always will. My intent is not to prevent Americans from wishing each other a "Merry Christmas," or from including a Christmas song in a holiday concert -- quite the contrary. It is my hope that expressions of faith are done with sensitivity to others in the true spirit of the season.

http://www.adl.org/ADL_Opinions/Religious_Freedom/December_Dilemma_2009.htm

Ultimately, it’s Dan and my responsibility – and not our community’s - to ensure that Syd is exposed to her religious traditions and raised with a Jewish upbringing as we both were. We recently bought Syd her very own menorah as well as a kids’ book that explains in whimsical fashion the different traditions of Chanukah, such as eating latkes (or “luckies,” as Syd says) and spinning dreidels. To my delight, every night of Chanukah Syd excitedly clutched her (unlit) menorah in her tiny little hands while reading the story along with me. Next year, when Syd is a bit bigger, I intend to seek out more community celebrations of Chanukah, such as at local synagogues, to ensure that she is exposed to the joys of celebrating her Jewish roots. The Jewish holidays may not be particularly visible in the city of Sydney, but I can ensure they are in our home.

Happy holidays to all and to all a good night!