raising a jewish toddler during christmas time

Category:

raising a jewish toddler during christmas time

By heffalump Dec 25, 2012

For the past month people have been coming up to lo and saying things like, "are you waiting for Santa?" Lo is 17 months old and has no clue what they are saying so its not a huge deal now. But I'm dreading when she's older and these people prompt questions like "was I bad? Why doesn't Santa give me presents?"

Of course other kids will bring Santa up and she'll see him other places and these things would come up anyway, but having Santa constantly rubbed in her face every time we go to the store by the checkout lady is just plain annoying and unnecessary.

I kind of want to make her a shirt that says "I'm Jewish, Santa doesn't come to my house" for her to wear every day in December next year.

Any other Jewish bees able to relate?

You might also enjoy...

Tags: (no tags yet)

22 comments

mrbee
admin / wonderful grape / 20724 posts

Dec 25, 2012

Is your LO going to get gifts over the course of Hanukkah? Because that trumps Christmas every time and gives her a great answer too!
Mrs. Superhero
GOLD / pear / 1845 posts

Dec 25, 2012

we aren't Jewish but I feel the same way about Santa. Everyone is constantly asking her and she just stares at them...which is her usual response to strangers, actually. At least you have an acceptable excuse...
Mrs. Jacks
blogger / pineapple / 12381 posts

Dec 25, 2012

We have lots of Jewish friends and their kids usually say, "No, we do Hanukkah". Not a big deal. I remember getting to celebrate Hanukkah as a kid a few times (Jewish family members) and I thought it was way better than Christmas.
CupQuakeWalk
coconut / 8475 posts

Dec 25, 2012

We're not Jewish (Muslim) but I went through this as a kid & it wasn't a problem. I just said "we do Eid!" And I never felt like I was missing out. My parents let us know at a very young age that we were Muslim & bla bla bla. It was never an issue; we were raised knowing Santa didn't exist;)
Anyways- my plan with our LO is to BLOW Eid out of the water so that they won't ever compare it to Christmas. It's hard in this nation where Christmas is celebrated for the entire month at every corner. So, the plan is to just make Eid a huuuuge deal so the kids feel like " yeah, our holiday is cool too!"

Eta: My Christian friends always got me gifts for Eid & I get them gifts for Christmas. So, them having school friends that aren't Jewish can actually be there fun little way of celebrating twice. Our friends came to our Eid parties & we went to their Xmas parties. It was really nice:)
runsyellowlites
coconut / 8305 posts

Dec 25, 2012

We aren't Jewish but we don't celebrate Christmas in our house & even when we did we never did Santa. DS just tells people we do Hanukkah & that usually suffices.... Before DS would just try & ignore people that asked what Santa was bringing him, it only sometimes worked & other times he'd have to say that "We don't do Santa".

Only one year did DS get upset about not doing Santa but that was only because his bio-dad made some ugly remarks about it. Once DS & I talked about it he decided that he was glad I didn't lie to him about Santa.... Since then he's been fine.
Pink Champagne
clementine / 943 posts

Dec 25, 2012

DH is Jewish. He just used to say "I'm Jewish- Santa doesn't come to my house."
Our LO will have Santa, but only at my parents house. We plan to tell him, "Santa only visits at Grandma and Papa's house,"
He will get Hanukkah too, so I think he will be ok with no Santa at our house.
JessiBee
kiwi / 733 posts

Dec 25, 2012

I agree. I think if the child is comfortable with being Jewish and knows there are great things that come along with it (whether the eight nights of Hanukkah or Shabbat dinners or whatever traditions your family celebrates), she will be comfortable enough saying that Santa just doesn't come to her house...but I'll have to update when we have an LO to teach the same things!
glimmersnaps
apricot / 491 posts

Dec 25, 2012

We don't celebrate Christmas either because we are Muslim. I feel the same way @Turtledoves does about making the Eids a huge deal. Now that they are getting closer to summer it will be harder for kids to remember by the time December (aka Christmas month) rolls around.

I don't think a t-shirt would help, lol. People constantly wish me Merry Christmas and I am obviously Muslim with my hijab and all. People just assume that the whole world celebrates.
cyndistar3
pomegranate / 3980 posts

Dec 25, 2012

I celebrate Christmas even I think some people are ridiculous about asking kids about Santa and presents!
heffalump
GOLD / wonderful grape / 20289 posts

Dec 25, 2012

This does make me feel a little better about when lo is older, and I do agree that she'll be able to answer with the whole chanukah thing because that will be my answer to her. I guess I'm worried because my brother asked my mom the "why doesn't Santa give me gifts, was I bad? " question when he was young. Too young too understand. And her response was to run out to a gas station and get a gift from Santa. That's not going to cut it with us, there's no Santa here, and I'm just already dreading all of this.

@glimmersnaps: I have mixed feelings about making a big deal about chanukah. Of course we celebrate and have fun with it.... but really it isn't a big holiday for us. Its only compared to Christmas because its around the same time and people got jealous of the gifts so our gift giving got out of hand. Our big holidays are the high holy days usually in September. I don't want lo to think chanukah is the most important holiday for us.
prettylizy
GOLD / papaya / 10206 posts

Dec 25, 2012

A little different perspective, but I went to a Catholic school from jk-8 but am not Catholic. During all the sacrements everyone was really excited and got gifts and stuff, but my parents just explained that we didn't do that. I never really bothered me and I didn't feel left ouf of the picture because I didn't get those gifts. Kids are smarter than we give them credit for most of the time.
glimmersnaps
apricot / 491 posts

Dec 25, 2012

@Artbee Well if you do your big thing in September, then your kids can just be like "we already did our holiday" by the time it's December. I have heard that Chanukah isn't really a big deal it just gets pumped up because institutions like schools want to feel like they are being "inclusive" when celebrating Christmas. A few years ago our Eids were falling around this time of year so they were getting mentioned too. But with our lunar calendar they are closer to summer now.

I think also making a big deal out of a holiday can be more than gifts. Making meaningful decorations and food is really memorable and special. And a lot of Muslims go to amusement parks for Eid or nice dinners. Hey, at least every thing's open on our special days!
JessiBee
kiwi / 733 posts

Dec 25, 2012

@artbee: It depends where you live, too. I grew up in a really Jewish area, so even when Hanukkah was really far away from Christmas (like it will be next year), people would come into school the first week of December (or whenever it was) and ask what you got for Hanukkah last night. So if you're in an area with a bigger Jewish population, that can cut down on the Santa questions too, because there are so many other kids that Santa won't be visiting!
heffalump
GOLD / wonderful grape / 20289 posts

Dec 26, 2012

@JessiBee: Yes our area doesn't have many Jews at all. Like during passover our grocery store puts out regular, non kosher for passover cookies with stars of David on them because they "seem" Jewish. I guess we should be happy that they're acknowledging we have a holiday?

When I respond to people that, "No, we didn't go visit Santa, LO's Jewish. We did Chanukah instead." People give me sad eyes like I'm a mean mom for not letting my kid have Santa
Trailmix
nectarine / 2152 posts

Dec 26, 2012

@Artbee I grew up as the only Jewish kid in my school and I really never had an issue with Santa or not celebrating Christmas. I kinda liked being different and we always did presents for Hannukah instead, so it wasn't like I ever felt deprived or anything...I think as long as you teach your LO the traditions of Judaism and make them a valued part of your house (which I'm sure you do), your daughter will be totally comfortable being able to tell people that Christmas isn't her thing.
JoJoGirl
cantaloupe / 6206 posts

Dec 26, 2012

@artbee: Yeah this is a tough one, especially when LO is too young to understand different religions. I seem to remember someone on a different thread offering up the idea that "Santa doesn't visit our house because we're Jewish, but we get xyz instead" so it's not a good/bad thing. I don't remember having an issue with this as a kid but don't know yet how we'll deal with it when LO is old enough!
Lozza
pear / 1837 posts

Dec 26, 2012

DH is Jewish and grew up in North Carolina (not exactly a huge Jewish population there), and his parents decided that they'd do presents on December 25 rather than for Chanukah, since, like you said, it's not really intrinsically relevant to Chanukah anyhow. They figured if they were going to be all commercial and materialistic about a holiday, they'd do it on the goy holiday (they never did a tree or anything, it was just like "ok, it's the holiday season, here are your holiday/end of the year presents".
JoJoGirl
cantaloupe / 6206 posts

Dec 26, 2012

@Lozza: That's sort of funny and makes sense! The Russian Jews I know actually treat New Year's as sort of Christmas (i guess to differentiate themselves from the non-Jews in Russia?) and have the big dinner, exchange gifts etc on New Year's instead. We always did it on channukah so already had our gifts usually before christmas came anyway!
Mrs. Jacks
blogger / pineapple / 12381 posts

Dec 26, 2012

@Lozza: I should say that all my Jewish family members scored because they got gifts at Hanukkah at home and Christmas gifts from the rest of the family!
Mrsbells
squash / 13199 posts

Dec 26, 2012

@artbee: We are christian but I also wont be teaching my kids about santa, so I'm pretty much in the same boat.
fuzzypeaches
clementine / 950 posts

Dec 26, 2012

I am Muslim too and when I was growing up my friends would give me Eid presents and I would get them Christmas presents. I never really felt left out or had a problem with it, and most people were very understanding when I just said that I didn't celebrate.

I'll probably do the same with future LO, just make Eid to be so amazing that the lack of Christmas isn't an issue. Haha
Anutka
cherry / 190 posts

Dec 26, 2012

@JoJoGirl: Actually all Russians celebrate New Year's like that. When the commies came to power and people weren't allowed to celebrate Christmas, the holiday kinda transferred over to New Years.

So as a kid here, I'd have to explain to my friends that I have to wait to till January 1st to get my gifts. Didn't really bother me. And it makes for much nicer shopping with all the post-Christmas deals

	Today	Monthly Record
Topics	0	1
Posts	1	3

Hellobee Boards

raising a jewish toddler during christmas time

You might also enjoy...

Reply

most popular tags

most recent archives

Recent Blog Posts

Recent Board Posts

Classifieds

Deals

Today's Leaders

Holidays (Parenting)

Today's Posts

Site Basics

Features

Series

The Team

More