Well, it’s that time of year again. The Christmas season dropped in on us this weekend about as subtly as a fat man slides down a chimney. Millions of people went to bed early after their turkey feasts on Thursday night, and then woke up to hit the malls before dawn Friday morning. Wal-Mart set a new one-day record, raking in $1.43 billion in sales. Apparently many of you will be finding BB guns and a lot of ‘As Seen on TV’ products under the tree on Christmas morning.
As I write this column, I’m sitting at home in Maryland, staring out the window at my neighbor, who is desperately trying to fasten a plastic Santa and reindeer to his roof. Maybe my neighbor thinks these light-up decorations will act as a decoy, similar to the fake deer that hunters use, to attract Santa down to his house. ‘Hey Rudolph, that looks like us down there on that guy’s roof! Let’s go check it out, Ho Ho Ho!’ My neighbor has set a cunning trap that will ensure Santa won’t miss his house this Christmas.
Someone once told me that all of this mall shopping and house decorating has something to do with celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, although I fail to see much of a relationship. In fact, the celebration of Christmas in this country seems to have become more of a celebration of American values than of any real religious beliefs.
People celebrate Christmas by flaunting their success through elaborate decoration of their homes and by relishing their roles as American consumers. They show their love for their family and friends through the purchase of Barbie dolls and foot massagers, heading out to the mall on the day after Thanksgiving as if it were their patriotic duty. In most cities across the country, an enormous evergreen tree is displayed in a central area of town, and people stare up at it with the same pride and reverence that they show toward the American flag.
And be-cause Christ-mas has become so Americanized, I have to admit I’m a little jealous. It’s not that I long so much for a tree in my living room or a plastic Santa on my roof, but more for the feeling of being a part of something that has been accepted as a piece of our national culture. From a very young age, non-Christian children are made to feel strange because they don’t hold the same beliefs as the majority of the people around them. It’s hard for a little Jewish kid to be proud of his religion on Christmas morning, when all of his friends are waking up to new video games and bicycles under their trees.
American Jews have made some attempts to compete with Christmas. We’ve played up the importance of Chanukah, and began making our own trips to the mall to celebrate the holiday with gift-giving. In fact, in Israel, Passover is the primary holiday, not Chanukah, on which people give gifts to each other. The concept of giving large gifts to children during Chanukah is a largely American custom, fabricated as a means of competing with Christian gift-giving in December.
This year we’ve even got a Chanukah movie, Adam Sandler’s ‘Eight Crazy Nights,’ accompanied by a brand new version of the Chanukah Song to help us overlook the fact that everyone around us is celebrating Christmas. But knowing that ‘David Lee Roth lights the menorah’ is hardly enough to combat all the ostracism accompanied with being Jewish at this time of year.
I don’t know whether to be happy or upset at the commercialization of Chanukah. On the one hand, it’s nice to know that there are many other Jews out there and to have our holiday recognized by the general population. But at the same time, I’m afraid that Judaism will become too focused on the commercialism that Christians seem to have embraced. While the Chanukah menorah is certainly not as impressively decorative as Christmas lights, it is at least seemingly more representative of our religious history. The Chanukah menorah symbolizes the legend of the lamp that burned for eight days following the Greek destruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, while I remain confused about what flashing lights, plastic reindeer or dancing elves have to do with the birth of Christ.
It’s wonderful for any group of people to embrace their religion and celebrate their past. I realize that Christmas also involves family togetherness and the giving of charity, but it’s not families gathered together around their tree singing carols that gets in my face it’s the outrageous commercialism and gaudy decorations that many American Christians have adopted as part of their holiday. I’m not suggesting that Christians stop celebrating Christmas, but it would be nice if they could express their religious pride in a less overwhelming manner. Cutting back on the commercialism of the holiday would be a good start toward making Christmas feel less oppressive.