Good Start
This is my first time not really doing Christmas. I haven't celebrated the holiday in a religious way in years. And so many things will not change. J and I will still go to my parents' house for the day. We will eat dinner and exchange gifts. We might even go look at lights. But we are not putting up our own tree. We are not putting up our own lights. We are lighting a menorah.
And I see the holidays very differently than I ever did before. There is something liberating about making up your own way of celebrating. I imagine our way will change each year and evolve as we figure out who we are as Jews and how our family will work. While our family (J and I and any children we eventually have) will be Jewish, our overall family will be inter-faith. And as hard as that will be for all of us it is something that we will have to work out--probably over time.
J doesn't really understand how much I am thinking about this. I think he thinks I am being negative. I am really not. I am enjoying this feeling. Of Hanukkah being new. Of Christmas being something that I can understand and enjoy in a different way. But I am also a very practical person. I just want to figure this out, have it all settled ahead of time. I don't want to have a big holiday smackdown over dinner on December 25th.
He doesn't worry about these things. I guess I worry for him. I just don't want anyone to get hurt. But I guess that is already happening. But we are all trying. We are having Christmas with my family. I gave my mom the Mickey Mouse tree skirt I had that she has been coveting for a few years now. My mother bought us a menorah. A nice one, because she said she wanted it to be a heirloom object to be handed down. Its a small thing. But its a good start.
