Winter Holidays: December 2007 Archives

As I bring this year's December Dilemma Watch to a close, I have to say that 2007 will not go down as a banner year in the history of the Christmas wars. There were no freedom-of-religion (or freedom-from-religion) lawsuits that grabbed national headlines, no flood of boycotts of major retailers because those stores wished people "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," no barrage of books and specials hosted by television news commentators decrying the tragic decline of the rights of religious people in America.

Could it be that the days of such squabbles are behind us?

Probably not--for two reasons. One is that those who want to fan flames can always find flames to fan; even this year, there was, as you've read in this blog, a smattering of holiday struggles. The second is that a new iteration of the December Dilemma arose this year, and it is not likely to disappear in Decembers to come.

This new debate is less about the rights of Americans to practice their faith in public, and more about the spiritual implications of an American consumer culture that feels to many to be directly at odds with the religious meaning of the December holidays.

Jews have witnessed the festival of Hanukkah, which celebrates the resistance to assimilation of Judah Maccabee and his army, transform into a holiday that resembles Christmas in the proliferation of themed decorations and gift-giving. But for Christians, the issue hits even deeper, because unlike Hanukkah, Christmas is a major religious festival, one of the most significant of the Christian liturgical year.

The holiday is celebrated with the language of giving, but many Christians feel disappointed that the concept of lovingly offering a gift as a way to connect to a friend or family member, not to mention the larger idea of giving of yourself to make the world a better place, is easily lost amid the marketing campaigns that suggest that an electronic gadget or expensive bauble is the true spirit of the season.

And this is where the December Dilemma has landed. Very few people want to give up altogether, in the name of being more "spiritual," the fun of holiday gift-giving, not to mention party hosting, card sending, and house decorating. Nor should they--these traditions are the stuff of memories for families and communities. But many are wrestling with the idea of how much is "enough," how they can slow down their lives to truly connect with the reason for the celebration, and how they can re-infuse meaning into this sacred time of year.

What a valuable conversation to have, and what a relief from the rancor of previous years' Christmas wars. In those quarters, all is calm, all is bright for Christmas 2007. But may 2008 continue to bring out more insightful, more thoughtful conversations about not only how we practice religion in our free society, but why we do.

In Green Bay, Wisconsin, a nativity scene was erected in front of City Hall. Some members of the community felt that this was an inappropriate public display of religion, and one man felt strongly enough about it to request that a Festivus pole be erected next to the creche. Festivus, of course, is the fictional holiday, popularized by the "Seinfeld" show, in which an unadorned aluminum pole is posted and people partake in rituals including "feats of strength" and "the airing of grievances."

According to this Associated Press article, resident Sean Ryan requested the Festivus display in order to "showcase how deciding what religions to include in the display can turn to the absurd."

Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt, however, is not amused. The mayor says that a Wiccan pentacle display was installed at City Hall after residents requested it, proving that the city is willing to display symbols of legitimate religions.

The "silly antics" of the Festivus request, Schmitt said, "is kind of making a laughing matter of something that's rather serious."

In Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo declaring victory in the War on Christmas, he cited a column by the Philadelphia Daily News' Carol Towarnicky. O'Reilly said that for her comment that "No religion should be in the public square, not even when the overwhelming majority of citizens practice it," Towarnicky would be applauded by "Joseph Stalin, Mao, and Fidel."

Here's Towarnicky's full column, with her take on O'Reilly's real victory:

"When underpaid and underinsured cashiers sell you stuff you can't afford to give to people who don't really need it, much of it made in deplorable conditions overseas, they will be sure to wish you a "Merry Christmas" instead of that sinister "Happy Holidays," she writes. Her column advocates a re-focusing onto Advent saying, "Just maybe, it would focus our attention on the churches, homes and families where the real Christmas still thrives."

Check out this gallery of tips for families who are facing the December Dilemma not in the town square, but in their living rooms. Here's how it begins:

"The December holidays present particular challenges for Jewish-Christian families. This is an emotionally fraught time when couples recall the family traditions they grew up with and think about what they want their kids to experience--and what they'll miss, if the decision has been made to practice one faith. The following tips from interfaith couples emphasize compromise and creativity. What works best, they say, is to recognize what is important to each of you and help the other to get what you most want and need."

Click here to view the gallery.

Beliefnet contributor Rabbi Brad Hirschfield , author of You Don't Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right, Finding Faith Without Fanaticism, offers this post on the family implications of the December Dilemma.

Yes, it's that time of the year again - lights are twinkling, children's expectations are rising, and so is intra-familial tension as America's twenty-eight million interfaith families struggle through the holiday season trying to honor their own origins, deal lovingly with their partners' expectations, and all the while create a warm celebratory environment for themselves and their kids. And it's not so simple.

Of course at the heart of this conflict lie the unresolved issues that most of us carry around about our own religious backgrounds and the spiritual journeys on which we find ourselves. And for no population is that more true than those who are making a life with someone of another faith. Even for those who declare that they are "past those issues" or have "no faith at all," the holidays are about much more than dogma and doctrine, and therefore bring it all up.

The holidays are about family, and memory and our desire to bring warmth and beauty into our lives. So how could this not come up even for the most seemingly secular among us? Not to mention that most people who have chosen to be in an interfaith relationship have been told by their own coreligionists that such a choice reflects an abandonment of their faith, and having integrated that interpretation because they don't know how to explain how false it is, find themselves surprised by the intensity of their own feelings during this time of year. So what to
do?

First, partners must admit that no matter how much they told each other that "it really didn't matter" what they observed or how, they actually do care and that they were not holding out back then, but were just discovering how deep their feelings run. That's a great thing in a
relationship because it creates new levels of intimacy, which is always a good thing.

Second, people of different faiths can use the "tree/menorah debate" to explore their feelings not only about the faith into which they were born, but that of their partner. Utilize the moment as one of appreciative inquiry about what it is that the person they love most loves about their religious/ethnic identity. It's not a test in which each side must prove the value of their respective faiths, but a chance to speak about the values and memories that flow out of each person's experience which they most want to celebrate, as others from that same community also do.

Finally, it's a chance to remind ourselves that we can support each others' spiritual growth and religious celebration even when it doesn't express itself in exactly the way we would do it for ourselves. We can do that as long as the underlying values are not mutually exclusive, but
if the relationship is healthy, they rarely are. When they are, each partner recognizes that they can learn from those different values even if they don't fully share them. But in either case, we clarify the difference between practices like candle and tree lighting, which are unalike, and values like light and warmth, which are deeply similar, no matter how different the garb in which they come. Too often we fight about the practices in the name of values instead of acknowledging that multiple, even competing practices may support shared values about which we need not fight at all.

When we integrate the message that you don't have to be wrong for me to be right, at least not nearly as often as we have been led to believe, the December dilemma becomes a sacred opportunity to express, with genuine integrity, our love of one tradition and our openness to the dignity of others -- something we could all use a bit more of in the coming year.

Rabbi Brad Hirschfield is the author of the new book, You Don't Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism (Harmony), and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.

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