A Very Long Explanation for Why We Celebrate Christmas

My family is Jewish, as most of you know, but we also celebrate our own non-religious version of Christmas with my sister’s family. If you’ve followed me for awhile, you have seen our Christmas tradition evolve over time, but if you are a newer follower, you might be wondering how we got here. I know this because every Christmas, I get lots of direct messages asking about why we celebrate the holiday. Some questions feel like genuine curiosity (“No judgement but…”) and others make it sound a little more loaded (“I thought you were Jewish.”) Either way, I always have a hard time figuring out how to respond. “Because we want to” seems to be the most concise, but also not very nice. Longer answers sound defensive. I think there is a bit of Jewish guilt attached. The truth is, there are lots of reasons, not all related to one another, some of which might seem more satisfying than others depending on who asked the question, and if you ask my sister (I recently found out), she would tell you a totally different explanation than any of mine. So, this post is my attempt to give one long comprehensive answer where I can send people every time it comes up, and then I never have to try to figure out how to word my answer again.

The first thing I want to explain is that there are all different sects of Judaism, just like there are all different forms of Christianity. Reform, conservative, orthodox, reconstructionist… we all practice differently and have different rules we live by. For instance, I get messages all the time confused as to why I’m eating bacon or shellfish, and then I have to explain that’s a rule for Jews who keep kosher which is not nearly all of us. According to Pew Research, Jews who keep kosher are about 17-22%. For reform Jews (of which I am one), the number drops to about 5%. There are also lots of cultural and ethnic Jews who keep their family traditions alive but are not particularly religious. A lot of my friends fall in that category.

Amongst the Jewish people we are friends with, celebrating Christmas in some fashion is fairly common. Many of us did not grow up celebrating Christmas at home, but have incorporated some non-religious aspects into our own traditions as adults. Some just like the idea of having a tree because they think it’s festive and pretty. Others put out milk and cookies and do the whole Santa thing, because it’s fun for the kids. I think the commercialization of Christmas has grown over the years, and coupled with seeing everyone celebrate on social media in a more intimate way than we saw on TV and movies growing up, has made a lot of cultural Jewish families throw their hands up and say, okay fine, I’ll partake in the festivities. Of course, there are many Jewish families who do not participate and would never dream of having a Christmas tree at home. People like my own mother. But she has also come to our Christmas and is very happy for the excuse to bring our family together.

Although we never celebrated Christmas at home growing up, we still always acknowledged the holiday. I remember my mom taking me to sit on Santa’s lap as a kid (there’s a very funny picture of me straightening like a board and screaming like I’m being kidnapped), going on a family trip to Woodstock where Santa rode around town on a sleigh giving out stockings full of presents on Christmas Eve, and as a theater kid, I participated in more than one rendition of A Christmas Carol. But it was actually my mother’s brother’s second wife who introduced my sister and me to what Christmas really feels like. Aunt Alice was Christian and came into our lives when I was about 10 years-old. A few days after Christmas, she invited my sister and I to their house to celebrate. I remember not knowing what to expect and walking into a fully decorated living room with stockings hung on their mantle with our names on them and tons of presents underneath the tree addressed to us. I sat there opening one gift after another from a woman who had just become part of our family, absolutely shocked by the generosity. I’m not sure how many years she did this for us (maybe 3?), but it created quite an impression. She gave us elaborate Easter baskets on Passover too.

When I was 13 years-old, my dad got remarried to my stepmom Paula, the woman my kids now call Nonna. Paula is Catholic and although we didn’t spend Christmas Day together growing up (they always went home to her family on Rhode Island), they had a tree in their apartment for the month of December (we would visit every other weekend) and they threw a big Christmas party every year where they collected Toys for Tots. I remember being really surprised to see that tree in my dad’s apartment the first time.

Still, I never imagined I would celebrate Christmas with my kids when I was an adult, but that changed when Mazzy was about 5 years-old and Harlow was two. Poppy and Nonna invited my family and my sister’s family (Jack was one; Neve wasn’t born yet) to Rhode Island to celebrate Christmas with them. This was my kids’ first Christmas, and it was my first real Christmas too. Meaning, it was the first time we did the whole thing— decorating the tree upon arrival, Christmas Eve dinner, hanging our stockings, wrapping gifts the night before (my stepmom had gotten small dollar store gifts for the kids- quantity over quality), milk and cookies left out for Santa, and the kids running down the stairs to open their gifts in the morning. I probably don’t have to tell you how it felt to be a new mom watching my little kids eat the whole Christmas experience up— absolutely magical.

I thought we would celebrate Christmas with Poppy and Nonna every year after that, but it didn’t quite work out that way. They sold their house and the next year, we didn’t have a plan in place. My sister and I discussed it and decided we would still love to get our families together for the holiday. I think Hanukah actually overlapped with Christmas that year. We had just bought our house out east and invited them to stay for a few days. It ended up being a last minute decision, the day before Christmas actually, to buy a tree. It was a very small tree, one that we could replant in our yard after we were finished with it (a very Jewish thing to do) and the kids made ornaments from paper and tinfoil to decorate it. Mazzy even fashioned a pipe cleaner into a Jewish Star to put on the top and we called it a “Hanukah bush.” The whole weekend was amazing, the kids loved celebrating with their cousins at our house and a new tradition for our family was born.

We continued to host Christmas at our house for the next few years, our “hanukah bushes” still small, but getting a little bit bigger each year. Our collection of homemade ornaments grew to include places we traveled, framed mini photos and collectibles. I loved unboxing them each year and seeing the kids recognize each one and claim their favorites.

In 2020, my sister moved to a house in Connecticut and decided that she wanted to take Christmas over. Apparently, Christmas is a big deal to my brother-in-law (aka Uncle Mikey) and according to them, they are actually the reason we celebrate. You are??? She told me they had a longstanding tradition of decorating the cactus in their apartment for Christmas, giving gifts on Christmas morning since they started dating and even getting engaged on Christmas Day. Then they got married right before the holidays so they could honeymoon over Christmas break. Had I been trying to justify my celebration all these years when it was really their doing???

Initially, I was a bit disappointed that my Christmas tradition was coming to an end, but Mike was never fully on board with it, and I realized Christmas in Connecticut at my sister’s was actually kinda perfect. Plus, they had no qualms with getting a full size legit Christmas tree.

We’ve celebrated Christmas at my sister’s for the past five years, minus the one year when we went to New Zealand. We continue to celebrate even though the kids are old enough to understand it’s not really our holiday. Our Jewish holidays might be a lot more meaningful for us, but personally, I love Christmas because it’s just for the fun of it. It’s my sister and I demonstrating our own free will as adults. Most of our holidays are complicated with extended family, who to invite and which side of the family to celebrate with, and with my mom now in Florida, it’s not a given that my sister and I will spend them together. Our Christmas celebration however is simple. It belongs just to the eight of us. It’s a time for food, puzzles, presents and sitting around in our pajamas. No pressure. No greater meaning. No guilt. We’re just all grateful to have an excuse to be together.

Now that the kids are getting older, and with Mazzy going to college soon, making sure my sister and I have established traditions seems more important than ever. And when our kids have free will to make their own decisions on how to spend the holidays and who to spend them with, I hope Christmas in Connecticut with the cousins is one tradition they will keep.