It's hard to be Jewish at Christmastime

It used to be, in the more civilized days of yore, that Christmas revelry was confined to that period between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

You would consume vast amounts of turkey and sit in a stupor watching football games as your family argued around you, and then you'd struggle off the couch, put on your coat and drive across the state to get plenty of rest for.....

The Day After Thanksgiving Sales. The biggest shopping day of the year. That day when mall parking lots are completely filled up so that even the handicapped spaces are taken, the day when you sharpen up your credit cards and take on the debt of a small Caribbean nation. We all knew that this time period was hell, but you got through it.

As a Jew, I've always stayed completely out of stores except for the grocery, from Thanksgiving to New Years Day. There was little reason for me to shop anyhow, since we're not the kind of Jewish family that makes Chanukah into the "Jewish Christmas". My kids get small Chanukah presents, but nothing like Christmas at all.

As a Jew, I wasn't that happy that an essentially "one day" holiday took up more than a month on the shopping calendar, but you can't fight city hall on this one.

However, Christmas now begins the day after Halloween when people are already bragging about how their shopping is almost all done and have planned their holiday down to what they're planning to eat at every meal. 

Sorry folks, but this is ridiculous. Christmas is a religious holiday that lasts all of 24 hours. 

Yes, it's a big one on the Christian calendar, but it isn't a secular holiday, it's all about the birth of the Christian version of the Messiah.

That gifts are exchanged is a nice practice. We all love gifts, don't we? But to take over an entire culture for two full months out of the calendar year for this one 24-hour period is really overdoing it, doncha think? I do understand that this is the retailer's choice, but my feeling is, if you didn't shop for Christmas items until after Thanksgiving, maybe this would all be dialed back.

One year not too long ago, I was in a suburban Filenes the day after Yom Kippur returning something that I had bought the day before Yom Kippur. I believe this was in late September. When I bought the item, the store was completely normal. Two days later, the store was completely overhauled into Santa's Workshop Winter Wonderland. That they decorated the store on Yom Kippur was bad enough, but they did so WEEKS before even Halloween. That's just too ridiculous for words. I found it personally insulting as well.

It's hard to be Jewish this time of year.

Fortunately, my family lives in an area where almost half of the population is Jewish and our town doesn't not go overboard at all. Most of the stores barely decorate, and if they do, they're tasteful and not overly Christmassy. You don't hear a lot of Christmas music around here in stores either.

I rarely leave my town, especially this time of year. I'm not continually assaulted with the "Merry Christmas!" salutation, it's more like "Happy Holidays" around here. People don't usually ask my kids what they want for Christmas, or what Santa's going to be bringing them. We're pretty sensitive around here, but surrounding us on all sides are hordes of Bostonians who aren't that accommodating. It's better not to leave town but heck, I didn't expect to have to spend months holed up.

I want things back to the old days when Christmas started right after Thanksgiving. Isn't that enough time?

Comments

[Margaret]

Actual, some of us who are religions feel the same way. Christmas is far to commercialized and takes away from the whole religious aspect (IMO). Sure, we're celebrating Jesus' birth, but to me, I'd prefer something more intimate as opposed to all glitter and bows and glam and "me, me, me".

As for the commercialized aspect, the Santa Christmas, it's way out of proportion. I too hate walking into a store before the Halloween (let alone Thanksgiving) decorations are put away and seeing all the excess (on aside note, I walked into Kohl's the other day and they had bathing suits and shorts ready to replace the winter gear, because hello, we need those in the middle of winter??????). Christmas is pretty stressful - the baking, the things to do (caroling and parties and school events and everything else), the sending cards (I love this part actually) and Christmas music 24/7 adds to the stress of the holidays and instead of being stressed for a few weeks, your stressed for months.

Christmas Day is my daughter's birthday. With a few unexpected events this weekend, I had no time to bake cupcakes. Iwent to the store to buy some and found one box (one out of almost 2 dozen or so prepackaged cupcakes) that were not Christmasy. They had snowflakes on them, but I'll take what I can get. It's so hard to separate it from Christmas but we try our hardest. The teacher even asked me today, would you prefer we celebrated today as opposed to with the holiday party tomorrow.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but your not alone feeling that way. Some of us Christmas folks are overwhelmed with the commercialization of the holidays as well!

[digraph]

A few weeks ago I was very excited to show my 3 yo that in Belmont they had a banner in a public space that had an image of a menorah. Sadly our town is just about xmas.

[Meg]

Christmas, the religious holiday, is actually twelve days. In countries that are predominately Catholic, the big celebration is on Jan 6,(the day Jesus was introduced to the gentiles) not Dec 25.

Commercial Christmas is 24 hours and I agree with you - it has gone way overboard and lasts way to long.

It's tough to be Catholic at Christmastime, too, when everyone is talking about shopping and teaching kids to want, want, want, when your tree needs to be at the curb before Kings Day and when you have to say Happy Holidays rather than Happy Chanukah AND Merry Christmas.