Merry Happy Whatever
I would like to take a moment to weigh in on the "Happy Holidays" vs. "Merry Christmas" thing going on this season. Some merchants and towns are doing away with any mention of christmas as if it--the 25th of December or the nice Jewish boy now known as Jesus Christ--had anything to do with this mid-winter celebration that originated to remind everyone during the darkest, coldest days of deep Winter that the warm days of Spring are now a little bit closer than they were.
Other than the Romans decimating what was left of the dwindling forests in Israel/Judea to build, among other things, the crosses upon which they punished various miscreants, christmas trees, wreaths, evergreen boughs, and the ribbons, ornaments, gewgaws and lights used to decorate them, have nothing--zip, nada, diddly squat, naught, zero--to do with the supposed birth of a son of a carpenter in Bethlehem or thereabouts 2000 years ago.
What we call Christmas is just a pagan holiday typically celebrated by cold climate peoples with trees and warming, spicy things to scent the air and eat. The winters forced large numbers of unwashed people to live in close proximity with each other (and their livestock) for months on end, and so a celebration including the bright colors and stench-masking fragrances associated with various cultural traditions of mid-winter solstice celebrations are no surprise.
To those who have studied the emergence of the cult of Christ followers, it becomes clear that to attract followers, the early cult leaders found it expedient to incorporate local religious practices, including Jewish ones and those of many of the pagan religions and cults that flourished at the time, into the emerging Christian ritual. Oh, sure, call it something else, like "birth of Christ" instead of "solstice celebration", Easter instead of Passover, move the Sabbath around a bit, etc. But the bottom line is, assuming Jesus really did exist, he was Jewish, not, well, anything else.
So, I don't care what someone wishes me. I don't care if there is Merry Christmas! or Happy Holidays! emblazoned in lights and gilt across the boulevard or store front or cards arriving in the mail. Either one makes a nice change from the nasty looks from people who believe you have to be missing a limb or walking with a cane or walker or riding in a wheelchair to be able to park in a handicap parking space.
As a Jew growing up in a relatively small Midwest town that was home to an even smaller Jewish community, my family celebrated Hanukkah. For eight days. The non-Jewish boy who lived across the street made his German war bride mother very unhappy when he went home and asked if they could be Jewish like me so he could get presents for eight days like I did. Needless to say, no converts were made that day on Solway Drive. Little did he or most of my non-Jewish friends know that, while we celebrated Hanukkah for eight days, we rarely got gifts on all of the days, or if we did, they weren't the great lavish gifts most of our goy friends found under their christmas trees. (Stereotype breaker alert: Not all Jews are wealthy!)
When we moved to California, where my mother was born (and stoned, 20 years earlier, when as a young girl, she was chased by classmates who were yelling "Christ killer!" at her, not that she had any idea who Christ was or why her now former friends said she killed him), my mother wanted to have a christmas tree, simply because she never had one and thought they were pretty. So, she and my dad picked out a mass of flocking shaped like a tree, and our first christmas in California was marked by a tree. A tree which made such a mess shedding and deflocking that my mother was disinclined to have any more.
Oh, sure, occasionally we'd have a "Hanukkah bush", a silly gilded branch with ribbons tied around the bare branchlets, propped up on something, under which we put our Hanukkah gifts. The holidays were usually spent with family friends, with a homey mix of Jewish chopped liver and rye bread and other snackers to keep up going through the late afternoons, preceding dinners that looked pretty much like the dinners our goy friends were having, with the possible occasional exception of the one of the nana's noodle kugel.
When I married a lapsed Catholic, I married someone who, like me, really enjoyed the color and smells of the holiday season. Finally, I could indulge in a way my mother had never envisioned. Vince and I went out tree shopping just after Thanksgiving, and I whined and wheedled to keep the tree up through the Greek Orthodox New Year (January 6). I needlepointed and cross-stitched and painted little clay ornaments for the tree, bought tons of other ornaments to mingle with the ones Vince had collected through the years. Poinsettias littered the hearth and front steps, with little ones on tables around the living room, scattered amongst the other holiday stuff I'd made or acquired through the years.
Along with the big tree, the mantel was spread with fresh pine boughs and holly berries, and the front door surrounded with more boughs. Across the wide archway between the living room and dining room I hung white and blue "boughs" and hung blue and white ornaments. The house smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg and pine. Every other year we would have an open house, and I'd spend weeks cooking and baking for the 70-80 people who would come to visit.
THAT is what the holidays are for me. What I do for Hanukkah (or not) is for me and my family, just as going to midnight mass is for those who go to midnight mass.
What the strident "How dare they take Christmas out of the holidays!' voices are ranting about isn't the religious or faith part of the holiday season. Religion and faith have nothing to do with the festive decorations that emerge the day after Thanksgiving. Just as religion and faith have no place in public schools and nonsectarian private schools, just as religion and faith have no place in a doctor's office, or pharmacy, or place of business (outside of churches, temples, or mosques), religion and faith have nothing to do with what the public expression of the holiday season is in the US, Canada, and much (if not all) of the EU (a notable exception being the Vatican).
It is this very stridency and attempt by some people to push their religion into the whole fabric of Americans and American life--which is more like a bowl of salad, than a bowl of cream soup-- that is pushing merchants and others to push right back.
So, back off. Religion belongs in the home and in your preferred place of worship. It doesn't belong in the marketplace, or the schools. If you have to force it into someone's face, you're doing something wrong.
If we're all God's children, what's so special about Jesus?
-- Jimmy Carr
When dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases.
-- Robert Anton Wilson
The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.
-- Jiddu Krishnamurti
Merry Happy Hannukmas, everyone!
===========================
Other than the Romans decimating what was left of the dwindling forests in Israel/Judea to build, among other things, the crosses upon which they punished various miscreants, christmas trees, wreaths, evergreen boughs, and the ribbons, ornaments, gewgaws and lights used to decorate them, have nothing--zip, nada, diddly squat, naught, zero--to do with the supposed birth of a son of a carpenter in Bethlehem or thereabouts 2000 years ago.
What we call Christmas is just a pagan holiday typically celebrated by cold climate peoples with trees and warming, spicy things to scent the air and eat. The winters forced large numbers of unwashed people to live in close proximity with each other (and their livestock) for months on end, and so a celebration including the bright colors and stench-masking fragrances associated with various cultural traditions of mid-winter solstice celebrations are no surprise.
To those who have studied the emergence of the cult of Christ followers, it becomes clear that to attract followers, the early cult leaders found it expedient to incorporate local religious practices, including Jewish ones and those of many of the pagan religions and cults that flourished at the time, into the emerging Christian ritual. Oh, sure, call it something else, like "birth of Christ" instead of "solstice celebration", Easter instead of Passover, move the Sabbath around a bit, etc. But the bottom line is, assuming Jesus really did exist, he was Jewish, not, well, anything else.
So, I don't care what someone wishes me. I don't care if there is Merry Christmas! or Happy Holidays! emblazoned in lights and gilt across the boulevard or store front or cards arriving in the mail. Either one makes a nice change from the nasty looks from people who believe you have to be missing a limb or walking with a cane or walker or riding in a wheelchair to be able to park in a handicap parking space.
As a Jew growing up in a relatively small Midwest town that was home to an even smaller Jewish community, my family celebrated Hanukkah. For eight days. The non-Jewish boy who lived across the street made his German war bride mother very unhappy when he went home and asked if they could be Jewish like me so he could get presents for eight days like I did. Needless to say, no converts were made that day on Solway Drive. Little did he or most of my non-Jewish friends know that, while we celebrated Hanukkah for eight days, we rarely got gifts on all of the days, or if we did, they weren't the great lavish gifts most of our goy friends found under their christmas trees. (Stereotype breaker alert: Not all Jews are wealthy!)
When we moved to California, where my mother was born (and stoned, 20 years earlier, when as a young girl, she was chased by classmates who were yelling "Christ killer!" at her, not that she had any idea who Christ was or why her now former friends said she killed him), my mother wanted to have a christmas tree, simply because she never had one and thought they were pretty. So, she and my dad picked out a mass of flocking shaped like a tree, and our first christmas in California was marked by a tree. A tree which made such a mess shedding and deflocking that my mother was disinclined to have any more.
Oh, sure, occasionally we'd have a "Hanukkah bush", a silly gilded branch with ribbons tied around the bare branchlets, propped up on something, under which we put our Hanukkah gifts. The holidays were usually spent with family friends, with a homey mix of Jewish chopped liver and rye bread and other snackers to keep up going through the late afternoons, preceding dinners that looked pretty much like the dinners our goy friends were having, with the possible occasional exception of the one of the nana's noodle kugel.
When I married a lapsed Catholic, I married someone who, like me, really enjoyed the color and smells of the holiday season. Finally, I could indulge in a way my mother had never envisioned. Vince and I went out tree shopping just after Thanksgiving, and I whined and wheedled to keep the tree up through the Greek Orthodox New Year (January 6). I needlepointed and cross-stitched and painted little clay ornaments for the tree, bought tons of other ornaments to mingle with the ones Vince had collected through the years. Poinsettias littered the hearth and front steps, with little ones on tables around the living room, scattered amongst the other holiday stuff I'd made or acquired through the years.
Along with the big tree, the mantel was spread with fresh pine boughs and holly berries, and the front door surrounded with more boughs. Across the wide archway between the living room and dining room I hung white and blue "boughs" and hung blue and white ornaments. The house smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg and pine. Every other year we would have an open house, and I'd spend weeks cooking and baking for the 70-80 people who would come to visit.
THAT is what the holidays are for me. What I do for Hanukkah (or not) is for me and my family, just as going to midnight mass is for those who go to midnight mass.
What the strident "How dare they take Christmas out of the holidays!' voices are ranting about isn't the religious or faith part of the holiday season. Religion and faith have nothing to do with the festive decorations that emerge the day after Thanksgiving. Just as religion and faith have no place in public schools and nonsectarian private schools, just as religion and faith have no place in a doctor's office, or pharmacy, or place of business (outside of churches, temples, or mosques), religion and faith have nothing to do with what the public expression of the holiday season is in the US, Canada, and much (if not all) of the EU (a notable exception being the Vatican).
It is this very stridency and attempt by some people to push their religion into the whole fabric of Americans and American life--which is more like a bowl of salad, than a bowl of cream soup-- that is pushing merchants and others to push right back.
So, back off. Religion belongs in the home and in your preferred place of worship. It doesn't belong in the marketplace, or the schools. If you have to force it into someone's face, you're doing something wrong.
If we're all God's children, what's so special about Jesus?
-- Jimmy Carr
When dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases.
-- Robert Anton Wilson
The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.
-- Jiddu Krishnamurti
Merry Happy Hannukmas, everyone!===========================
posted by Melissa at 3:17 PM
1 Comments:
Hear, hear sistah! You said it.
Merry Hannukmas to you, too.
Nat
Post a Comment
<< Home