Thoughts about the holidays

If you've talked to me in the past week or two, you already know that I'm frustrated with lovely, insular London.  Despite the outward appearance of more than token multiculturalism, we have been met with gems such as the following:

"Do you put up a Christmas tree?"

"I know some Jewish people celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas."

"Why isn't Hanukkah at the same time as Christmas?"

"These songs aren't Christmas songs.  They're just holiday songs you hear on the radio at this time of year."

While the last quote is technically true, the person who said that to us completely missed the point.  And yes, the timing question is valid, but not in the context of assuming that our holidays should naturally always line up with Christian holidays.  Perhaps some people celebrate both holidays, but as Ben and I wanted to respond, "We are not those people."  We are comfortable in our faith and this has nothing to do with xenophobia.  We just have a hard time with the ignorance that is so prevalent in our society with regard to other people and their holiday celebrations and customs.

After explaining to someone that we celebrate Hannukah and it will be over a couple of weeks before Christmas this year, I was asked if we would still put up a Christmas tree.  No.  No tree.  No stockings.  No Santa.  We do not celebrate Christmas in any way.  No secular celebration.  No religious celebration.

I guess I should qualify the above diatribe.  We do celebrate the abundance of gigs at this time of year!  Seriously though, I do understand that people aren't aware of other cultures but I personally find it insulting when someone assumes that we celebrate Christmas even though I have just told them that we are Jewish and celebrate our own holidays which are in no way related.

Rant over.  I now return to my regular life in which Rachel is pretending to be Judah the Maccabee and Anna is insisting that she is Thomas the Tank Engine.