I don’t disagree with you. But since it * has* been appropriated, it all screams “Christmas!!!” to me, whether the symbols are secular, pagan, or overtly Christian. E.g., Habitat for Humanity, to which I contributed this year, just sent me a self-described “holiday pin” that’s red and green and features a candy cane, christmas tree, snowman, stocking, and bell. Sorry, that is Christmas iconography. (If it’s not, why doesn’t everyone walk around with dreidels on their sweaters? Hannukah is a military, not religious, holiday.)
I’m not actually Jewish, myself (nor do I play a Jew on TV), but my boyfriend is. It works out very well. His family is very secular, so they do a big Thanksgiving get together, which we attend. Then we spend Christmas with my family. So he does kind of celebrate Christmas, but mostly because he wants to hang out with me and my family.
He was thrilled with having a Christmas stocking last year, so Mom is knitting him a stocking with stars of David on it this year. I’m not certain if this is a good idea or not.
All those things you mention are definitely associated with the “End-of-the-year-holiday” Christmas (which die-hard rabid Christians revile anyway) but not “baby Jesus lying in the manger” Christmas. Do you have the same criticism of Halloween, given that it was originally a pagan Celtic holiday that got it’s current moniker as being the day before the Christian “All Saint’s Day”?
The part that catches on is the secular aspect, not the Christian aspect. How many Christian holidays that don’t have secular aspects catch on or are given any attention? Ash Wednesday? Good Friday? Palm Sunday? Please. Instead, look at Easter with it ‘s cute lil’ bunnies, chicks and eggs or Valentine’s Day with it’s hearts and candy and lingerie? 
I don’t know if describing Hannukah as a “military holiday” is the most accurate description – how many Department of Defense gentiles break out the menorahs during Hannukah? However, I bet if a determined enough group (or marketer, actually) wanted to attach some secular iconography to the holiday, it would gain momentum. Actually, it probably wouldn’t work for Hannukah, that time of year is clearly overcrowded already. I would try Yom Kippur instead.
In the end, it’s too bad that the end-o-year bash got tagged with the Christian moniker. I am definitely in the “Festivus” camp myself.
*"…for the rest of us!"
There was an article in American Heritage magazine some years back that asserted that prior to World War II Hannukah was an exceedingly minor holiday, probably less observed than Purim, and that it was increasingly common (albeit somewhat controversial in Orthodox circles) for Jews to observe the more secular elements of Christmas – Gifts under a decorated tree, Santa, etc.
After World War II, the article asserted, there was a wave of rediscovery or reidentification of Jewish identity on the part of many previously “assimilated” Jews, and the holiday of Hannukah became somewhat amplified as an alternative to Christmas.
Does this discription jibe with the memories of any of the older posters here, or the older relatives of the younger ones?
I’m an Agnostic, Protestant-decended, Festivus celebrant myself.
I am not Jewish, but I dated a Jewish man whose entire family celebrated Hannaka on Christmas Day (only…not the traditional 8 days of Hannaka either) complete with tree. However, they decorated the tree with dreidl’s (sp?) and gawdy menorhas (sp again?). The rationalized it by saying that is when they all got time off of work. They also did the whole Santa thing so far down to most of the time calling him Saint Nick rather than Santa Claus. They did this in all seriousness without the mocking tone I suspected.
Just read the rest of the thread. (Sorry posted before reading.) I also have another Jewish Friend who’s family celebrates Christmas too. I don’t celebrate it but I generally do go out for a movie and Chinese food with my Jewish friends who aren’t doing anything on Christmas day.
To continue the slight hijack, I once had a very sweet but not terribly worldly coworker who was going on about Christmas and her favorite Christmases, and to be snarky, I said, “Mmm, my favorite Christmas was the one I spent in Jerusalem.”
She looked at me and gave this great sigh and said, “Oh, that must have been amazing.”
Man, it totally ruined my snark when I had to explain to her that it was great because no one celebrated it.
It’s at least common enough that it was made a joke on the Simpsons this week past; it was presented as one of the duties of an observant Jew.
Heh, and I know several people who do that, or go to the movies on Christmas.
And all of them are associated with Christmas, whether that was their identity in the past or not. They’re not secular if you’re something other than Christian, Christian-derived, ex-Christian, or culturally Christian. They’re not associated with a Jewish holiday. They’re not associated with a Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu holiday.
It’s an observation, not a criticism. And yes, Halloween is celebrated in this culture because of its association with a Christian holiday. It is not a Jewish holiday. Yes, some Jewish kids will decorate or trick or treat. No, orthodox families don’t.
I don’t disagree with you, except that the secular aspect is celebrated because it is in conjunction with a Christian holiday. I don’t know how to say this any more clearly–if one is not from a Christian background, this may jump out more emphatically.
What do you mean by “catch on”? I can tell you that the state educational system in which I work gives employees Christian holidays off. Don’t get me wrong–this doesn’t trouble me. But it does concern me when it is not acknowledged that Christian traditions form the basis of the cultural trends. It is not secular; it is not ecumenical; it is not culture-free.
If by this you mean that they are secularized Christian holidays, embellished with pre-Christian ritual, sure, I agree. But again, to me as a Jew those “cute lil’ bunnies” are “Easter bunnies” and are Christian. Yes, I eat a chocolate bunny. No, I don’t think it’s culture-free or Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. It is Christian.
My point exactly. And Hannukah is more a military holiday than anything else. It celebrates the victory of a Jewish military group over a conquering non-Jewish group, and, like all observances in the short days of the year, uses the kindling of lights as its symbolism.
Hannukah has been much more commercially hyped as a Christmas analogue even in my lifetime.
Since this is a day of profound soul-searching, confession, and forgiveness, you’re better off keeping at it with Hannukah!
My father is Jewish (Conservative). He celebrates Christmas, but practices only the holiday’s secular elements; the tree, the decorations, the gift-giving, but not the “reason for the season.”
When I went to Israel, my wife and I arrived on Dec 24. We spent the day resting up from the flight. Of course, on the next day, we went to the kotel. We went on a tour of the tunnels underneath the wall. While waiting for some tour members, the tour leader (an American who made aliyah) turned to me and said “Isn’t Israel great? It’s the one place in the world where you can forget that it’s Christmas.”
Zev Steinhardt
What with several 100000’s of foreign workers + many Christian immigrants coming in under the “Grandfather clause” of the law of return + globalization & secularization of Israeli society - no longer. Not that it’s the Mechandizing Monster it is in the West, or even very widespread, but you do see some Santas (or at least Employees in Red Beanies with White Tassle) here and there.
And even a hard atheist such as I thinks that this is not a Good Thing 
Judaism is also a culture, d***it! We have our own Solstice Feast! 
But, C’est la vie
And on preview, the question was Jews celebrating Christmas, so I guess the above is rendered a drive-by, and the actual answer is still, basicly, “no”. But it’s an interesting observation anyway, so I’ll leave it up.
Dani
Here’s something I found that’s sorta relevant to this thread.
Enjoy!
F_X
Cite?
(seriously, is there a link to this? I’d like to see if there’s more where this came from!)
Dani
I’ve known relatively observant Jews who celebrate Christmas professionally, but not personally. As in, the parties at work were Christmas parties, the gifts to clients and employees were Christmas gifts, the bonuses they gave were Christmas bonuses, they decorated the offices with Christmas decorations. It was as Christmassy as all get out and this was in NYC where being Jewish isn’t weird or exotic to gentiles. But, one of these people did ask me if I thought the Metropolitan Museum of Art would be open on Christmas Day. To me that said she wasn’t doing Christmas in her personal life, first of all, and that she had reached her 40’s in NY without really observing what was going on around her.
I’m about as secular, Reform, and non-observant a Jewish agnostic as you will find, and I do get caught up in some Christmas stuff.
Mostly it’s a) caroling, because I love both the musical and the warm-fuzzy aspect of it; b) cooking (see previous entry re: warm fuzzies); and c) my family has a tradition of serving Christmas Eve dinner in a soup kitchen with some old friends, because among other things we feel like we might as well make the extra time off work useful to people who need it.
However, when I was a kid and Dad was married to Stepmother #1, we had a very weird thing with her kids from her previous marriage. They were also all rather Reform Jews, but somehow they had made Christmas into a much bigger deal than any Jewish holiday I ever saw them observe, complete with stockings hung on the mantle, their dad coming over to read “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” a tree, an obscene pile of gifts, and eggnog. (I did appreciate the eggnog.) It really gave me the heebie-jeebies. Then again, a lot of things about their family gave me the heebie-jeebies.
My ex husband had a good friend who was an observant Jew (everything I learned about cooking kosher I learned from cooking for her - she would eat out of my kitchen, however, so make your own judgements about how observant she was) who did the whole Christmas thing - Santa, trees, gifts. The missing things were the same things missing from our (secular Unitarian/Atheist) Christmas - midnight mass and a nativity.
So I wouldn’t say there aren’t ANY non-secular Jews that celebrate Christmas. How common it is, I don’t know.
My sister in law converted to Judism a couple years ago and is coming to our home for Christmas for the first time since. I know that in the early stages of her conversion she didn’t want anything to do with Christmas - I think she now believes compromise is important when there are important people in your life to whom the day is important. (And remember, its a secular Christmas at our house anyway. I even edit the Christmas carols - the religious themed ones are instramentals, there are words to Frosty the Snowman).
I have just hung the lobster, Mexican devil, and pig. Feliz Hannukah!
Ah, Shoshana, you are definitely my kind of Jew!
Dani
We celebrate by Christmas by visiting my Catholic brother-in-law’s house and bringing presents wrapped in Chankah paper. I just look at it as an excuse to be with family members that I really like. We honor their holiday and they come over to my house at Passover for a seder. It’s really not a big deal for any of us.
OTOH, my Protestant mother in law once gave me a small bush decorated with little dreidels as ornaments. It was very hard to keep a straight face. I still get the giggles thinking about it.