This might not be the correct forum for this, but religious questions seem to progress to debate quite often, so I figured I would post this here.
A question for American (or other Christian dominated countries) Jewish Dopers. How do you explain Santa Clause to your kids? The idea of a guy who brings gifts is a very appealing idea to children, and with the commercialization of Christmas, Santa appears everywhere from the mall to riding around neighbor hoods on a fire truck. Do you tell your kids he does not exist, or just that your family doesn’t believe in him? Do you allow them to believe in him until they are old enough to understand religion better?
Also, how do you explain the fact that almost all business have Christmas and other Christian holidays off, but not Jewish ones?
Do you ever fear that your child will question his / her religion on the basis that it is not the norm of the society where you live?
I am not religious at all. My family calibrated Christmas, but it was more out of tradition than religion. I never went to Church, and I plan on raising my kids without much religious input. I was wondering what I would tell them about Santa and Christmas and everything because they will definitely know about it, and want to know the reasons behind it. This got me thinking about how the Jewish people in this country address this issue.
I don’t know what companies you work for, but my days off are:
Fourth of July
Memorial Day
Labor Day
Thanksgiving
Dec 24th-January1st, which most of us use vacation days to round to the nearest full week there (on both ends).
We don’t get off:
Columbus Day
MLK Jr Day
Veteran’s Day
President’s Day
And especially not:
Any time around Easter
Good Friday
Or any other religious days that I can think of.
The roads never seem that awful empty on them, either, so my guess is there’s a lot of people working. Jews and Christians.
Actually I guess it is only Christmas. I have worked for two companies and both of them have had Christmas day off. This year I have the 25th and the 26th off. I am a temp though so I dont get paid…not exactly vacation, but at least I don’t have to come up with an excuse not to be here.
My company does give the High Holidays off, as did my school when we were kids. We’d barely arrived in September when here came Rosh Hashannah and out we go!
Most of the Jewish kids I know just thought of Santa as sort of a spirit of generosity, and in those pre-PC days we did the gifts and cards thing in public school with a simple Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukah depending on the person. Sometimes we were wrong (the Buddhist kid from Vietnam got a ‘Happy Holidays’) but good-natured correcting was all that was done, nobody got so prickly about it.
I don’t explain Santa Claus to my kids as there is nothing to explain. My children certainly know (to some extent) the myth of Santa Claus and can identify him by sight. But they know that Christmas is not their holiday and therefore Santa Claus has no more meaning for them than Simon Bolivar does for your average Tibetan.
No. My wife and I are giving our children a solidly religious education. Such education has been shown to allow children to be able to either answer questions that they may have or enable to know where to find the sources where they can find the answers they seek.
Zev Steinhardt
Hey, what about athiests? I’m one, but I celebrate Christmas anyway. It’s a fun holiday, I like giving people presents, so what’s the problem?
I would tend to doubt it. How about countries where a minority of Christians live amongst a majority of, say Muslims?
Anyway, to address the OP: I grew up in a heavily Jewish neighborhood, and at least some exchanged Christmas gifts. In any event, Saint Nicholas has been hijacked so far into consumer culture that in my mind, and I think most others, he is now a purely secular figure.
I’ll now leave it to Jewish Dopers to provide a more authoritative statement.
I don’t recall specifically discussing Santa with my kids, and their awareness of Santa - derived primarily from images on the labels of soft drink bottles - is rather vague.
Of course, questions such as these are very different for people like myself (and likely, Zev) than for people who are more fully integrated into American society. My kids (oldest is 12) are brought up in a society in which Judaism is very much the norm, and in fact, it takes a while before they gradually become aware that most people in the world are not in fact Jewish. A situation like this would not apply to most US Jews.
Not from an intellectual standpoint - here too I echo Zev’s post above. But it does present issues. I am not aware of any case in which someone has rejected Judaism on purely intellectual grounds. But the Orthodox Jewish lifestyle can be pretty restrictive as compared to those of many in the society at large, and the constant exposure to the forbidden pleasures of the larger society means can be something of a temptation for some young people.
I grew up in a predominantly Catholic area of the nation–nearly 90% catholic, actually-- (Tex-Mex border), and I never saw Santa as a religious figure. He was a guy who scwitzed to death wearing a red-and-white fur in the South Texas heat (our winters are usually in the 40s and 50s, though this year may be different).
It wasn’t until I had a better understanding of the Christian ideology that I really understood what Santa was about. The way I thought of it, and what I’d suggest you tell your kids, is that Santa was like another tooth fairy for the Christian kids.
I’m an agnositc ex-Catholic, and I love Christmas. My workplace is filled with non-Christian Asians, who don’t seem to give a hoot. We do this thing at work during the holidays called a “Yankee Swap” (kind of a Secret Santa with Teeth), and everyone gets into it. We sometimes throw Chinese New Year into the mix (real dates are kind of irrelevant if it’s close enough…gong xi fa cai!) and eat all this good East-Asian food, deck the halls with a menorah or two, for the heck of it. The whole thing is this multi-culti mulligan stew with so little resemblance to any particular religious anything that Jesus is pretty much a non-issue no matter what your feelings about Him. Lots of folks donate food for the food drive, and give toys to Toys for Tots. It’s an ecumenical eat-and-be-merry funfest, but there is, of course, the understanding that we owe it all to Christmas. Since we all get to slack off, pig out, and give goofy presents for a day, I don’t see too many people complaining or worrying too much about it, except maybe some of the bean-counting project managers, who wring their hands in Scrooge-like fashion over the general loss of productivity that comes with this time of year.
The spirit of the seasons is inclusive, warm, friendly - and if you give gifts on Hanukkah, or have a Hanukkah bush in your living room, you’re participating in it, and that’s what it’s all about. It’s even a bigtime holiday celebration in Japan. I’d also agree that Santa Claus is not inherently a Christian symbol, either, and neither are tree decorations or stockings or elves or any of that stuff, so you are in no way betraying or undermining a different faith by embracing them for your own families. It’s all good. Enjoy!
For what that’s worth, “Christmas trees” are a borrowing from Teutonic pagan traditions. They’re no more a Christian symbol than Hanukkah bushes. The date and the party aspects of the holiday are from the Roman Saturnalia. Much of the rest of the trappings of Christmas are from German and Dutch children’s stories, Victorian novels and poems, and old Coca Cola ads. But Christians can and usually do embrace all that non-Christian and non-religious stuff without undermining their religious beliefs. What’s the problem with Jews or Buddhists or whoever else setting aside the Nativity story and having the same fun with the rest of it?
Because regardless of their origins, they are now Christian religious symbols. There may come a time when they lose all connection with religon (IMO, like Valentine’s Day or Halloween) but they haven’t yet.
A “Hannukah bush” is just what it sounds like: A poor imitation of a Christmas tree devised by Jews who envy others’ religions and don’t have enough conviction in their own religion to enjoy their own holidays without having to borrow/steal ideas from others.
But Idependance Day, Thanksgiving, Valentines Day, etc. aren’t Jewish holidays either. Are they irrelevant to you and your kids as well?
CHRISTMAS IS NOT A CHRISTIAN TRADITION! It’s a Western tradition. Most of the customs are from Northern Europe or Rome and pre-date Christianity (on the one hand, and on the other, Christmas was largely re-invented in the US in the 1800s). The early Church chose this season (“Yule” or “Saturnalia”) in which to observe the birth of Jesus as a can’t-lick-'em-so-join-'em measure.
We went to all that trouble getting manger scenes off the courthouse lawn and changing the name to “The Holidays” so Jews and other non-christians can enjoy the season too. Of course, no one should be pressured into celebrating the Holidays any more than they should be pressured into rooting for the local sports teams. I used to be quite the curmudgeon when the Vikings came on because I didn’t like being pressured into rooting, but eventually I realized that having beer and pizza while watching the game with the guys is a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. It’s about bonding.
And so is Christmas. The true meaning of the Holidays is to brighten up a cold, dark time of year, to rekindle the ties with loved ones and to spread good cheer generally.
I’m a Christian, and was raised that way, and my parents never did the whole Santa Claus thing. I don’t recall ever asking about it; I never got anything from him, so I had no reason to.
