The holiday divide

It’s holiday time again! Deck the halls with whatever you have handy and drink eggnog or two. This is my 66th Christmas; I think I have the ritual down pat.

I’ve noticed, though, that the ritual has changed since my childhood. A row of Kwanzaa cards at the Hallmark store? Menorahs in the park next to baby Jesus? This ‘dilution’ of Christmas has a few folks grousing. Well, not just grousing — filing suits and insisting that “Merry Christmas” is the only suitable greeting.

I am in favor of celebrating diversity as much as the next person. In many ways, broadening the festivities so that all religions can have a visible share of a community holiday is the right thing to do. But there’s a downside to celebrations we need to talk about.

Hanukkah is not “Jewish Christmas”; its observance has nothing to do with Christianity. For that matter, Dec. 25 is only superficially a “Christian” day. Both have become a celebration of good stuff (choosing gifts for people we love, spending time with family) and bad stuff (too much spending, eating and stress). For most of us, Christmas (and Easter and Halloween) are no longer sacred occasions, yet it’s the religious distinctions of holidays that worry me.

I was raised by Presbyterians. My best friend Carol Sue — whose back door faced mine, about 50 feet away — was Jewish. December holidays were among the few things that disrupted our sisterhood. It was a reminder that we, and our families, were fundamentally different. There was a chasm, which seemed to have something to do with Santa Claus and dreidels, which was always there.

As a non-Jew of German heritage working at the Holocaust Center in Maitland, I think about the chasms all the time. I think about all the ways that we let our own family’s culture and tradition make us see the differences among us rather than the common humanity we share. It lets us blur the line between what’s important and what’s simply familiar. It encourages us to focus on “otherness” that really should not matter.

I do not mean to say Bah Humbug, nor do I mean that religious rituals and celebrations aren’t worthwhile. I only want people to recognize how they sometimes divide us, and I want us to notice the non-holidays when Christians, Jews, Muslims and all others seem to have much more in common.

—Susan Mitchell

Project Director

Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida