My Wife Mixes Up the Holidays

by on December 10, 2007 7

As the Times indicated the other day in its annual piece on mixed-religion couples, some people get agonized about intermarriage. I suppose I’ve been myself or why would I be so hung up on Jewish identity? My gentile wife is different. She studied anthropology, and a lot of religious ritual is mythology to her, both fluid and important. The other day she called up my niece and nephew, the products of intermarriage, and shouted, "Happy Hanukah!!!" Then asked with delight what they had gotten on each day. Later I heard her telling my niece that she had passed her note on to Santa. (At Thanksgiving, my niece had written out her requests very solemnly, and my wife had folded the note with the same piety). The call ended after my wife said, "OK now, I’m going out to feed the reindeer!"

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Beyondoweiss, US Politics

{ 7 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Harvey says:
    December 10, 2007 at 1:24 pm

    That's a great story Philip, and it likely resonates with many Jews and non-Jews. We honor both Chanukah and Christmas with the grandkids since all of them come from mixed marriages. More emphasis on caring and loving and appreciating, than on zealotry and armed resistance, and messianic figures.

  3. Oarwell says:
    December 11, 2007 at 9:33 am

    Santa? You mean the fat, red-suited alternate myth of commerce, bringing "rewards" on that "special night?" With 12 flying beasts substituted for the 12 apostles? Dispensing plastic crap instead of the gifts of God, false illusions of pietistic nonsense rather than true holiness? A perfect inversion of the true meaning of Christmas, when God became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ?

    After the crash, Santa will be gone forever, without national marketing to sustain his absurd fiction.

    But Jesus will be with us until the end of time.

    As will the amazing Jewish people, blessed forever by Hashem.

    Islam, I don't know bupkis about.

    Put that in your ecumenical, syncretist hookah and puff on it.

  4. Charles Keating says:
    December 11, 2007 at 11:18 am

    My Jewish wife always wanted a Christmas tree. She's always had one since the first season of our marriage. For her first tree, I chopped down a fine blue spruce and put it up with tiny blue lights. Growing up, we had an angel on the top. I made her a Star of David with cardboard and aluminum foil; I put that on top. We never had a problem with Christmas. I also bought her a menorah that first year. Her large extended family lived in the same metro area, while my family lived far away. My son grew up with plenty of Jewish influence. We agreed early on, as to religion, our son could choose himself if he wanted a particular religion. He has never chosen either, but is very comfortable with either–just not a problem.

  5. Oarwell says:
    December 11, 2007 at 11:27 am

    "He who relieves the poor, makes Ahura king."

    Zoroastrian wisdom

  6. Charles Keating says:
    December 11, 2007 at 12:22 pm

    O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! He who, knowingly lying, confronts the brimstoned, golden, truth-knowing water with an appeal unto Rashnu and a lie unto Mithra, what is the penalty that he shall pay?

    Ahura Mazda answered:–

    "Seven hundred stripes with the Aspahe-astra, seven hundred stripes withthe Sraosho-karana."

  7. Oarwell says:
    December 11, 2007 at 1:44 pm

    Wisdom indeed.

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