D
Dwyer
Guest
"I’ve always had an uneasy relationship with the holiday season. Growing up in a town in Northern New Jersey that had very few Jewish families – despite being surrounded by towns that did – I always hated that I had to celebrate Hanukkah instead of Christmas. When December rolled around every year, I was inundated by reminders that I was different from just about everyone else in my class. The downtown was decked in wreaths and lanterns; in our music class we sang carols of all kinds – including religious ones; my classmates sat on Santa’s lap at Willowbrook Mall. Every year, I’d get questions about Hanukkah and how I felt about not celebrating Christmas; I felt like an exhibit at some sort of racially-insensitive museum.
But the thing that got to me the most was when I’d be in the car at night and we turned the corner onto our street. Every house was lit up, the blinking, multicolored incandescent bulbs that were prevalent in the ’70s and ’80s blazing away. Some houses were more subtle, with a string of lights hanging from the gutters, others had Santa’s sleigh landing on the roof. When I saw the homes that had their trees on display in big picture windows, I thought of the warmth of the crackling fire, stockings hanging over the mantle, wrapped gifts under the tree and envisioned opening gifts on Christmas morning . . .
But we also can’t go full-on Christmas in our house. There’s just too much family history that would be betrayed if we put up a tree or put an Elf on the Shelf. Even if I called it an “American Non-Denominational Christmas” and not the celebration of baby Jesus, it just wouldn’t feel right. Even the notion of a twig-shaped, Charlie Brown-style tree would make my mother-in-law’s heart break and my grandmother turn in her grave. So that’s out of the question."
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Read more: https://forward.com/life/faith/390382/why-christmas-lights-fill-this-jew-with-joy-and-dread/]( Read more: https://forward.com/life/faith/390382/why-christmas-lights-fill-this-jew-with-joy-and-dread/)
I thought we were all living in a Great Benthamite Utilitarian Society, where every individual is free to pursue their individualistic concept of pleasure or happiness (i.e., to do his or her “own thing”), and it is absolutely none of my concern or care how my neighbor pursues his own life but apparently that theory does not often correspond with the human reality.
“The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. … Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error.”
—Thomas Jefferson: “Notes on the State of Virginia”
But the thing that got to me the most was when I’d be in the car at night and we turned the corner onto our street. Every house was lit up, the blinking, multicolored incandescent bulbs that were prevalent in the ’70s and ’80s blazing away. Some houses were more subtle, with a string of lights hanging from the gutters, others had Santa’s sleigh landing on the roof. When I saw the homes that had their trees on display in big picture windows, I thought of the warmth of the crackling fire, stockings hanging over the mantle, wrapped gifts under the tree and envisioned opening gifts on Christmas morning . . .
But we also can’t go full-on Christmas in our house. There’s just too much family history that would be betrayed if we put up a tree or put an Elf on the Shelf. Even if I called it an “American Non-Denominational Christmas” and not the celebration of baby Jesus, it just wouldn’t feel right. Even the notion of a twig-shaped, Charlie Brown-style tree would make my mother-in-law’s heart break and my grandmother turn in her grave. So that’s out of the question."
[
Read more: https://forward.com/life/faith/390382/why-christmas-lights-fill-this-jew-with-joy-and-dread/]( Read more: https://forward.com/life/faith/390382/why-christmas-lights-fill-this-jew-with-joy-and-dread/)
I thought we were all living in a Great Benthamite Utilitarian Society, where every individual is free to pursue their individualistic concept of pleasure or happiness (i.e., to do his or her “own thing”), and it is absolutely none of my concern or care how my neighbor pursues his own life but apparently that theory does not often correspond with the human reality.
“The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. … Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error.”
—Thomas Jefferson: “Notes on the State of Virginia”
