"... is one of high expectations that are inevitably disappointed. It’s a day that promises to grant you access to the ideal version of your family—which of course is always out of reach. When I was on the outside of Christmas, I got to just enjoy the manic optimism that radiated off of other people in the lead-up. I didn’t have anything at stake."
A Metafilter discussion (linking to "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year/The Jewish Currents staff takes on Christmas" (Jewish Currents)).
It’s a day that promises to grant you access to the ideal version of your family... The day can't promise. The promise was always coming from inside your head... or inside the head of some other adult who was making Christmas happen within your family.
I got to just enjoy the manic optimism that radiated off of other people... That gestures at the emotional work that other people do... for you or in spite of you.
But consider whether what looks like "manic optimism" is actually religion. That can happen.
Posts
97 comments:
give up on the ever materialistic gift exchanging and focus on the food and the games.
and pray the airport opens.... so they can leave!
This sounds like every Hallmark movie ever made. Only, there the ideal version does come forth by the end.
Okay Mister Scrooge.
Many, many Christians consider the Santa-decorated tree-Rudolph holiday to not be "Christ-mass" at all. The Christians long ago incorporated 'pagan' European winter solstice traditions, and then 20th century Coca-Cola commercialism added fantasy theming to define the modern holiday.
If you are going to mass or a church service and looking at crosses and viewing Three Wise Men and a Baby in a Manger Nativity scenes then you might be talking about Christ-mass. If not, then please enjoy the commercial winter-themed holiday called Christmas. Both can be religions for some, and the holiday period is defined by each person.
Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines Day, Easter Bunny Easter, Mother's Day, 4th of July -- different commercial themes and different seasonal periods. It keeps the sellers busy and maintains even profits throughout the year. Stop drawing your emotions from schmaltzy Hollywood films designed for maximum emotional frisson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson
I doubt the author is a religious Jew, I.e., one who regularly attends services. Non-believers continue to need to thrust their views on believers.
Christmas is a celebration of the birth in human form of God’s only begotten son who came to teach people how to move closer to God on earth and ultimately in the after-life. Family dynamics are not the reason Christians celebrate.
If the manic optimism that radiated off people was enough for you (the Metafilter discussor) to enjoy the holiday, imagine how much more enjoyable it must be for the manically optimistic.
Christmas doesn't live up to the promise of an ideal family? Well, whatever. You obviously haven't heard people discuss what they expect to happen at their family celebrations. And yet, despite them having no illusions about that ideal family experience, they are still manically optimistic for a full month while you strangely contend Christmas doesn't live up to its promise. Perhaps you've misidentified its value.
JL: We live in a non-Jewish society, so everything we do is dialectically related to the opposition that we experience from the outside. In my mind, conspicuous consumption and Christmas are totally analogous—which means trying to maintain a distance from that culture of consumption and trying to maintain a distance from Christmas are one and the same. And so the same way I would want to insulate my life from the realm of materialism, I would want to insulate my life from Santa and carols and the way Christianity can enter into your house—
NG: By chimney, for example.
Hilarious.
The author is not entirely wrong. I tend to look back after Christmas and feel like there were certain things we missed or missed out on or didn't do during the 'season.'
I need to learn to accept Christmas as it is. At least this year we had a white one which helps with the ideal.
Excellent comment, Ann. Yeah: what if that manic optimism were, you know, a manifestation of faith in a Redeemer?
Christmas/Advent is a wonderful event every year.
I love singing and playing Christmas music, both secular and sacred. Big audiences at concerts and in attendance at services. Everybody knows the words and sings along.
I played for an audience for 9 straight days over the holidays. Sang the Hallelujah Chorus with 70 people, including the local high school choir.
Christmas didn’t disappoint me. It’s a religious holiday. Not a commercial event.
I'm not a Christian. But I am a christian (with a small "c"). That is, as I have aged and observed how humans interact with one another, I have come to value the wisdom of the principles expressed by Jesus the man, whether or not he actually was the Son of God. To me the religion is much less important than the concepts. And the concepts are much more impressive if he was in fact just a man, like us.
Awareness and acknowledgement of others. The giving of gifts. The forgiving of our enemies. The celebration of all of that.
"Lightweight religion"? Not relevant. Especially if you simply think and feel "Merry christmas" with a small "c".
With all the promotions that encourage a”Martha Stewart” Christmas or a Lexus with a bow on top, it’s always been easy to focus on the bright wrapping paper and totally ignore The Gift itself.
I feel bad for people that have little joy in their lives.
Christmas as "the ideal version of your family" is something American culture did in response to the more crass "commercialization" of Christmas, which was always the problem I heard about growing up in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Christmas as a time to go crazy for toys if you were a kid and to expect expensive stuff if you were an adult. Gifts gifts gifts. That needed a correction that was still consistent with commerce and TV commercials, so it got processed — sanitized — into family love. And if you got the sads because you had no family, the next weeks are crammed with the dream of romantic love — New Year's, of course, became a romantic love holiday, Valentine's Day became far more important for adults, and even stupid Groundhog Day got turned into a romantic concept. Fortunately, we all get drunk (and "Irish") in March and foolish for April, and the warm weather is finally within reach and we can scale down the bullshit.
Post-Christmas depression is something that hits me and everyone I know each year. A big event that dominates my thoughts and my household will do that. That doesn't make Christmas wrong.
It also occurs at the end of our calendar year, so whatever ennui I have is doubled. Not New Year's fault, either. For a week our world shuts down and everybody changes their habits.
How could this person never have experienced this before? It feels like journalists write the most far-fetched ideas just to fill the column.
Pretty negative. Lighten up.
Christmas was a low-key affair here chez Hawkeye. Somehow Mrs. Hawkeye manages to come up with some little clever gift that delights. This year it wasn't a Red Rider BB gun but an ice-ball maker that produces perfectly crystal clear highball ice rounds. They looked beautiful in my Christmas Manhattan.
Christians did not celebrate Christmas until the mid-300s. The cessation of Roman persecution ordered by Emperor Constantine allowed the Church to celebrate more openly than before. December 25 was probably chosen to counter the pagan celebration of the sun. Some believers have opposed celebrating Christmas because it takes place on a former pagan holiday, but this argument does not hold water as probably every single day of the year was a holiday / feast for one non-Christian religion or another. The pre-Constantine church did celebrate the resurrection of Christ at Easter, though there was some difference between the Eastern and the Western churches on the exact day.
Christmas season is a highlight of the year for our family.
Ann, please let us know when the bullshit gets scaled down. Or at least hits an inflection point.
The bullshit has been steadily increasing throughout my lifetime (which approximates yours).
"For unto us a child is born."
People's plans may not work out, and their earthly expectations may be disappointed, but the promise of Christmas was fulfilled once and for always 2000 years ago.
Have to link this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGzO1ghRKp4
SNL Christmas Time For The Jews
I had high expectations of the Jewish Currents but was inevitably disappointed by their unshared experience.
... is one of high expectations that are inevitably disappointed.
Like, you were expecting a KING, that would lead you in Rebellion against the Romans?
Unlike some, I always look forward to and enjoy the holiday with my family. Being the sixth of seven children (duh, we're Irish-Catholic), I was up in the rotation this year to host the Christmas Day family brunch/gift exchange, and it was a truly wonderful day that lasted till 8 at night; that is my only expectation when it comes to Christmas. That we have a wonderful day together and laugh & smile is all that I want, and in that regard, not a Christmas has occurred where that wasn't the case. It truly is a magical day in our family.
No wonder they celebrate festivus. They get their family drama out of the way early during the traditional Jewish 'airing of grievances'.
"the entire affective structure of the holiday ... is one of high expectations that are inevitably disappointed"
Perhaps the probability of success would increase if her partner found another partner.
Anyway, listen to them:
"anti-Christmas position is foundational to my Jewish identity . . . there’s an aspect of that aloofness that can just be smug and superior. But it can also be the basis of a critical posture toward the world . . . this rejection takes the place of some more positive vision of being a Jew in the US . . . I am a hardline grinch: I hate Christmas . . . I do wonder if the emergence of the Christian right after the 1960s led American Jews to retreat from Christmas—in other words, as Christmas became more religious” WTF? And even the one who kinda likes Christmas says: "I can’t believe I’m saying this."
So, is rejection of the majority culture, oppositionalism verging on anti-Americanism, now the "foundation" of post-religious Jewish identity?
The only thing missing from this is the Jewish mother in the background, moaning about being left all alone with nobody to love her, these ungrateful children, with this pain in her hip and she's probably dying from 'a tumor'.
... is one of high expectations that are inevitably disappointed. It’s a day that promises to grant you access to the ideal version of your family—which of course is always out of reach
God that's true. Christmas is great when you're a little kid, and when your kids are little. After that it just seems bittersweet. We're reminded of better days before people we love went to heaven, before our kids got older, before divorces...
I find I can capture the spirit of Christmas by listening to Bob Seger's version of "The Little Drummer Boy" over and over. Even better after a six pack. It's about greatness inside humility. A lesson for us all.
Maybe the problem is the expectation of the ideal version of your family. The old saying, 'you can choose your friends, but not your family' exists for a reason. We love them. But there are some issues and/or characters in each and every family. The 'ideal' is in your head. Accept the reality, and wrap your arms around it, and the holiday is much more appealing.
Also- the point of it is to feel the love of the season. The optimism. Some feel joy. To go into it with the pressure of your own expectations and those around you is self-imposed. Have zero expectations other than to enjoy the spirit of the season. Then you will love the season.
Also- it does represent Christ's birthday, so for those so religiously inclined, that should suffice.
I think the movie A Christmas Story illustrates the secularization of Christmas. It was released in 1983 but set in the 1940s and if there is one mention of Christ or going to church in the whole thing I don't recall it. The only supernatural being in the movie that the kids believe in is Santa.
"Alex Kane: I like the sense that everything slows down and there’s nothing Jews have to do"
I like his approach to Christmas. Being Jewish would deter others from insisting that he wear an ugly sweater or gets in the spirit. It would be bad form to accuse a Jewish coworker is being an ol' Scrooge. He retains the option to participate as little or as much as he'd like.
I watched a British show noting that Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol was a response to the sense that the true meaning of Christmas had been lost among all the social obligations, balls, and parties. A Charlie Brown Christmas hit on the same idea 120 years or so later. So, both are good starters on the "true" meaning of Christmas. Something about a child in a manger if I remember correctly.
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year = anytime that's not Winter. That Andy Williams can go s*** in his own hat and then put it back on his own head.
I'm a little stumped about how to respond to "takes on." Does Christmas really have to be "taken on"? Are we getting tired of magazines taking things on? Today on Althouse: Ann takes on Christmas, Black Sign Language, the Reagans, Highway Rest Stops, and School Shootings.
How religious are the article writer, the "partner" and family, and the rest of the country? How "manically optimistic" are people at Christmastime? Christmas is or is supposed to be a festive holiday. It's largely become a secular event. People feel they have to play along with the celebratory mood, even if it doesn't accord with their real emotions or experience.
Apart from children, whose feelings are really in accord with what's expected on holidays? What one may experience is a feeling that in spite of all the commercialism and enforced jollity, all the sham and tinsel, there is something real beneath it all, whether you see that in secular or in religious terms.
I knew somebody who had an article published in Jewish Currents, somebody who came from the days when the magazine was literally a Communist Party outfit. We didn't talk politics.
When you are a kid Christmas is fantastic. Nothing is expected of you. At some point in the teenage years it loses the magic.
The first few Christmases with a new love are fantastic. The magic is back and you develop new traditions.
Except for the Christmas Eve putting toys together Christmas with kids is the best Christmas of all. Then they become teens and the magic ebbs.
It will be interesting to see what Christmas is like with Grandchildren but that is way off.
Well, yeah. If Christmas is about finding perfection in people (family gatherings, etc.) or in gift-giving, it will fall short because that's what people do: fall short. That's why we needed Christ to show up.
You get out of Christmas what you put in. If you celebrate God so loving you that he sent himself in the form of an innocent babe who would deliver you from your brokenness, the day will not disappoint.
Christmas is overrated. There, I said it.
Call me Scroogey McGrinchyson.
I like the food, though.
The part of Christmas that I dislike is the published articles where the writers project their shit family experiences and inability to get along with them onto everyone elses family.
I imagine a part of people's attachment to Christmas has to do with their childhood memories of the holiday. Celebrating it for the first time as adult precludes such a perspective.
I actually much prefer Thanksgiving to Christmas. It has many of the same communal comforts as Christmas but without all the crass materialism and consumerism. I do like the fact that Christmas can be celebrated sacredly or secularly. I know a lot of people who were never Christian but still enjoy participating in the traditions and feeling part of a larger community.
@Lurker21
¶ 1 — I LOL'd
¶ 2 — Yeah, it's an idea of not generating your own fakery but enjoying the reflection of fakery.
¶3 — If there's something real underneath, I don't think what's piled on top is helping find it. It takes a lot of effort to enact "Christmas," and it's okay and maybe even a good idea to question why you are putting your effort there or if you're entirely mooching off someone else's effort. Effort at what? Piling stuff on top of what is either something real or nothing? If you're constantly bringing new children into the mix, maybe it makes sense, but maybe you're just covering up the lack of true religion or courage to live without religion. If you have good enough parties and music, you can keep it going without kids. Otherwise... consider letting go of Christmas.
¶ 4 — Ha ha ha ... did I link to Communism???!!!!
If you choose to hate Christmas and all it entails - and it is a choice - then you're going to be pretty unhappy during that time of the year.
I am an unbeliever, though raised in a devoutly Christian home. But I love both secular and religious Christmas. I find the religious carols are the best. What's wrong with appreciating them?
I embrace the Dickensian/Capra view of Christmas, that it should remind us of the importance of our relationships with and responsibilities to others. Christians also get to celebrate the birth of their Savior. I think that's great. Why should I resent that?
Merry Christmas, you old savings and loan!
Christmas is a religious holiday, promising the limitless love of God for each person.
If the other things are not subordinated to that astonishing truth, then they lose their focus and their point.
By comparison with supernatural joy and hope, other things are going to be disappointing.
That said, the materialistic, “merely” human and friendly Christmas in the USA is not so bad. The lights are pretty, the human cheerfulness, even if forced, is real, peoples attempts to be friendly and considerate and permit people to have time with their families is good. it one day in the year and which people I’ll give each other presents, at least other family members, is a historical curiosity, but it is pleasant, mostly harmless, and worth preserving. If, for most people in post-Christian America, Christmas is a vestige of a civilization which existed in the past, it is still a vestige worth preserving. It is mostly nice, and if lost would be replaced with nothing but more, unrelieved days of the rat race. I say, keep it.
So, three cheers for the Christian Christmas, with its crèches and angels and lovely Christmas carols.
And two cheers for the secular American Christmas with its parties and it’s cards and it’s lights and trees and presents.
As St. Therese said, I choose all.
Someone needs to watch these things every year:
1 - A Charlie Brown Christmas
2 - How The Grinch Stole Christmas
3 - A Christmas Carol
Even secular whackos like Paul McCartney are "simply having a wonderful Christmas time".
More Jews talking about CHristmas. Why?
I think one of the things we Moderns really obsess too much over is the uniqueness of any particular moment in time. In certain ways this is true as there is only one Christmas where your kid is eight years old, and there will certainly be the Last Christmas when a particularly loved friend or family member is present but in some sense these markers are all in our head, as our blog hostess notes in her comments. Your kid might have much fonder memories of some random Christmas where you thought everything went wrong but he had a grand time, and from personal observation of the outcome a Last Christmas memory is probably going to be more bitter than bittersweet. There have been Christmases before, and God willing there will be Christmases to come, so celebrate the Birth, and the Day!
Lexington Green @ 9:59: "...As St. Therese said, I choose all."
Nice. Thanks.
Jesus, Mary the Theotokos, and Joseph.
Just what the heck does Christmas have to do to deliver the promise of the ideal family?
It's right. Effing. There, at the heart of it.
Marrying someone is probably the most consequential decision any of us will make. Someone who takes religion seriously will ensure his house is filled with that religion. Someone who marries out of the religion who takes the religion seriously expect the partner will functionally convert so his house will be filled with that religion. Someone who marries outside of religion without that partner, functionally, converting and celebrating the religion is not someone who takes that religion seriously. That is to say if the woman is a member of religion, X in the man religion Y if the house is not unified in celebrating one or the other religion it means neither takes religion seriously. In light of that, this is an article about to secular people neither of whom takes religion, seriously commenting about religion. it seems to me it is not about an outsider getting an inside peek into someone else’s religion. It is an outsider with another outsider looking at religion from the outside.
Yes, Virginia. There IS a Santa Claus.
We drive 500 miles to spend Christmas with family. Most of my kids are there with their kids and we all enjoy the holiday. As my grand children get older, the holiday is less about gifts and more about just enjoying each other. I also like Thanksgiving and was able to have my baby sister, who is 82, with us for that holiday. It's all about family.
Do people not see the instructions above the comment window? They include "You must use a name or pseudonym. The non-name 'unknown' is not accepted."
I delete everything that is submitted as "unknown." In case you are wondering. If you are actively harassing me, you're an idiot.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
and the warm weather is finally within reach and we can scale down the bullshit.
Well at least you still have Festivus. Which feats of strength did you perform this year?
A companion piece to Mayim Bialik's sour, hateful video screed against Thanksgiving.
I can't relate to this. I love Christmas and pretty much every other holiday. Getting together with family and friends is the best. It's not much work because everyone contributes one or two dishes to all meals.
For the last two centuries, scholars following in the footsteps of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) have exploded the notion that the biblical descriptions of Christmas are in any way an account of something that actually occurred. So Christmas is an easy target for those of a rationalist mindset. Yet many who fully grasp the vulnerabilities and contradictions of the Christmas holiday manage, against all odds, to forge an event for themselves and their friends and families that has more elements of joy and generosity than any other holiday. Elvis Costello captured the need for the holiday, in what ought to be a Christmas carol:
And as I walk on through troubled times
My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes
So where are the strong, and who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony, sweet harmony?
'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry
What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?
"Do people not see the instructions above the comment window? They include "You must use a name or pseudonym. The non-name 'unknown' is not accepted."
The only unknown is Known Unknown.
I am a Jewish person with a Catholic wife and family. My wife is more religious than me so that outcome is fine with me.. Christmas is clearly both religious and celebrational. The religious part is a church service. The rest is a celebration of varying solemnity depending on the family. I always felt it was important to help others celebrate their holidays just as I help the celebration of weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. It isn't my wedding, birthday or anniversary, yet I help the person enjoy their special day more and have fun doing it! Family celebrations rarely mean the same thing to all members, however we still celebrate them.
I am a Jewish person with a Catholic wife and family. My wife is more religious than me so that outcome is fine with me.. Christmas is clearly both religious and celebrational. The religious part is a church service. The rest is a celebration of varying solemnity depending on the family. I always felt it was important to help others celebrate their holidays just as I help the celebration of weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. It isn't my wedding, birthday or anniversary, yet I help the person enjoy their special day more and have fun doing it! Family celebrations rarely mean the same thing to all members, however we still celebrate them.
I am a Jewish person with a Catholic wife and family. My wife is more religious than me so that outcome is fine with me.. Christmas is clearly both religious and celebrational. The religious part is a church service. The rest is a celebration of varying solemnity depending on the family. I always felt it was important to help others celebrate their holidays just as I help the celebration of weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. It isn't my wedding, birthday or anniversary, yet I help the person enjoy their special day more and have fun doing it! Family celebrations rarely mean the same thing to all members, however we still celebrate them.
I am a Jewish person with a Catholic wife and family. My wife is more religious than me so that outcome is fine with me.. Christmas is clearly both religious and celebrational. The religious part is a church service. The rest is a celebration of varying solemnity depending on the family. I always felt it was important to help others celebrate their holidays just as I help the celebration of weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. It isn't my wedding, birthday or anniversary, yet I help the person enjoy their special day more and have fun doing it! Family celebrations rarely mean the same thing to all members, however we still celebrate them.
I am a Jewish person with a Catholic wife and family. My wife is more religious than me so that outcome is fine with me.. Christmas is clearly both religious and celebrational. The religious part is a church service. The rest is a celebration of varying solemnity depending on the family. I always felt it was important to help others celebrate their holidays just as I help the celebration of weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. It isn't my wedding, birthday or anniversary, yet I help the person enjoy their special day more and have fun doing it! Family celebrations rarely mean the same thing to all members, however we still celebrate them.
I am a Jewish person with a Catholic wife and family. My wife is more religious than me so that outcome is fine with me.. Christmas is clearly both religious and celebrational. The religious part is a church service. The rest is a celebration of varying solemnity depending on the family. I always felt it was important to help others celebrate their holidays just as I help the celebration of weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. It isn't my wedding, birthday or anniversary, yet I help the person enjoy their special day more and have fun doing it! Family celebrations rarely mean the same thing to all members, however we still celebrate them.
I am a Jewish person with a Catholic wife and family. My wife is more religious than me so that outcome is fine with me.. Christmas is clearly both religious and celebrational. The religious part is a church service. The rest is a celebration of varying solemnity depending on the family. I always felt it was important to help others celebrate their holidays just as I help the celebration of weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. It isn't my wedding, birthday or anniversary, yet I help the person enjoy their special day more and have fun doing it! Family celebrations rarely mean the same thing to all members, however we still celebrate them.
I am a Jewish person with a Catholic wife and family. My wife is more religious than me so that outcome is fine with me.. Christmas is clearly both religious and celebrational. The religious part is a church service. The rest is a celebration of varying solemnity depending on the family. I always felt it was important to help others celebrate their holidays just as I help the celebration of weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. It isn't my wedding, birthday or anniversary, yet I help the person enjoy their special day more and have fun doing it! Family celebrations rarely mean the same thing to all members, however we still celebrate them.
I am a Jewish person with a Catholic wife and family. My wife is more religious than me so that outcome is fine with me.. Christmas is clearly both religious and celebrational. The religious part is a church service. The rest is a celebration of varying solemnity depending on the family. I always felt it was important to help others celebrate their holidays just as I help the celebration of weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. It isn't my wedding, birthday or anniversary, yet I help the person enjoy their special day more and have fun doing it! Family celebrations rarely mean the same thing to all members, however we still celebrate them.
I used to drive a cab here in Oslo and made excellent money on Xmas because of the higher meter rates. I often noticed a big mood difference in driving people to the family dinner and the ride back home again. Most going to the dinner were upbeat, and back home there was often a sense of disappointment.
I've always viewed Xmas as an outsider and have no feelings one way or another towards it. I grew up as a secular Jew (Reform actually, but no real difference) in the Long Island tract housing community I spent the first 11 years of my life. I later moved to a predominantly Wasp community but my family still didn't celebrate Xmas.
Fatuous nonsense. Jewish journalists reflecting on Christmas? Really?
Here's a clue: Christmas is the day when actual Christians, and some professing Christians, celebrate the birth of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, who died for our sins that we might be saved.
"... a day that promises to grant you access to the ideal version of your family." What rubbish!
I suppose that would the take of someone who got their idea of Christmas from Coca Cola commercials and Norman Rockwell paintings. Christmas if for children and grandmas mostly, with a smattering of middle class parents.
It is a bit of ritual embodiment of this observation on human equality with family harmony substituted
"The whole English-speaking world is haunted by the idea of human equality, and though it would be simply a lie to say that either we or the Americans have ever acted up to our professions, still, the idea is there, and it is capable of one day becoming a reality."
-- George Orwell
As a Jew, I enjoy Christmas, though of course I don't observe it religiously. But Christian friends, and neighbors, and business partners are all celebrating, and its very pleasant to be on the fringes of it. I don't need to try to figure out if they are deeply moved or just going along for the fun of it--unless they are close friends and they let me know. Either way, in our country, in our times, Christmas finds almost all the people a know full of cheerfulness and generosity, and I'm glad to be around for it all.
My wife likes Christmas enough for two, and I don't get in her way. In fact, I help her get the stuff out of the attic AND put it back.
I started proposing that we skip gifts among adults in the family several decades ago, but nobody else liked the idea. Now most of them are gone, and us survivors are defaulting to that --gift certs and good wishes.
Part of it, for me, is that I hate shopping. And I've always been resistant to cheer by the calendar or clock.
I am a Jewish person with a Catholic wife and family. My wife is more religious than me so that outcome is fine with me.. Christmas is clearly both religious and celebrational. The religious part is a church service. The rest is a celebration of varying solemnity depending on the family. I always felt it was important to help others celebrate their holidays just as I help the celebration of weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. It isn't my wedding, birthday or anniversary, yet I help the person enjoy their special day more and have fun doing it! Family celebrations rarely mean the same thing to all members, however we still celebrate them.
That discussion is icky. I feel sorry for most of them with every comment they make. Did not finish it.
Question: Why couldn't the Jews of Jesus's time accept him as the Messiah? Even though he comes walking out of the pages of Isaiah, as some put it.
1. Jesus shook up their power structure. He attacked the money-changers and sacrifice-sellers. He told the scribes and Pharisees, people undoubtedly quite proud of their social and religious status, that they were hypocrites and too blind to see the truth. He threatened their careful social and religious order. He championed the losers of that world and condemned most of the winners. Why would they have saluted him?
2. He was not David, winning battles for the kingdom; nor was he driving out the Romans. Those would be sure signs of the Messiah, many Jews must have assumed.
These seem the two most obvious answers to me and that's as far as I've ever gotten in my thoughts on this.
Blogger Kai Akker said...
(Re reasons contemporary Jews did not accept Jesus as messiah)
Actually there is a great deal of Jewish biblical (Ketuvim) commentary as to what the messianic world looks like. The obvious is the lion lies down with the lamb and man beats swords into plowshares. So one criterion is there will be world peace and man will not know war any longer. For a Torah-observant Jew, we know that in the absence of world peace, we still wait for the messiah. We do not have a tradition of a spiritual messiah to be followed later by a materialistic messiah. That is a new concept.
Blogger Laughing Fox said...
As a Jew, I enjoy Christmas, though of course I don't observe it religiously.
...
Same. I am a Torah-observant Jew. I love Christmas time. Everyone is so happy and kind. Of course I don't celebrate the holiday religiously but it is a very pleasant time to be an American with everyone so positive.
Kai Akker" "Why couldn't the Jews of Jesus's time accept him as the Messiah?"
Many of them did. The first "Christians" were Jews. You can see in Paul's epistles how he needed to explain the differences to the new non-Jewish followers of Jesus.
The Pharisees were part of a religious "power structure," but not of a social and political one. Take a close look at the Gospels and you'll see that pagan Rome was in charge.
I am a Jewish person with a Catholic wife and family. My wife is more religious than me so that outcome is fine with me.. Christmas is clearly both religious and celebrational. The religious part is a church service. The rest is a celebration of varying solemnity depending on the family. I always felt it was important to help others celebrate their holidays just as I help the celebration of weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. It isn't my wedding, birthday or anniversary, yet I help the person enjoy their special day more and have fun doing it! Family celebrations rarely mean the same thing to all members, however we still celebrate them.
"... is one of high expectations that are inevitably disappointed."
Christmas is the celebration we hold at mid-Winter. Not because the Winter is over, and it is Summer again, but because the days have stopped getting shorter.
Say Elliot, are you by any chance a Jewish person with a Catholic wife and family? Yeah, I thought so.
Ya know folks, just because blogger goes haywire, that doesn't mean your comment didn't get through. I know, since Althouse went to moderation, you don't get to see your brilliant comment as soon as you hit enter, and that creates frustration and anxiety. What if my opinion never sees the light of day?!?
You must have faith.
Jason said...
“Jesus, Mary the Theotokos, and Joseph.
Just what the heck does Christmas have to do to deliver the promise of the ideal family?
It's right. Effing. There, at the heart of it.”
1/9/23, 10:32 AM
In fact, within the span of time between Christmas and Epiphany (literally the 12 Days of Christmas) there are two entire feast days devoted to family: The Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God (Theotokos), followed by the Feast of the Holy Family, in which the Gospel relates the story of Jesus accidentally being left behind in Jerusalem when his parents depart for Nazareth after the festivals. The drama of a child who is lost is one that almost every family shares, most commonly, at least here in the US, in the context of being separated at the County Fair or in a supermarket/department store.
Today is the Feast of the Baptism, and the formal end of the Christmas season. But it's been rainy and dreary here and it's been nice to have the tree lit up. I don't think keeping it up few more days will matter.
My husband's observant Jewish boss puts on a very kind and joyful Christmas gathering each year. Twice he brought us beautiful decorated eggs from Eastern Europe for our trees. I have loved being included in the ritual of Shabbat more than once. This writer is missing the Joy of such observing. He should attend a Good Friday mass and experience the power of the silence, the extinguished candles, the altar stripped.
@hombre:
Here's a clue: Christmas is the day when actual Christians, and some professing Christians, celebrate the birth of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, who died for our sins that we might be saved.
Where do Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and Quakers fall into this scheme? Actual Christians or professing Christians.
>>Say Elliot, are you by any chance a Jewish person with a Catholic wife and family? Yeah, I thought so.
Elliot may well get the win for the most duplicate comments ever.
--gpm
J Farmer: Are you looking for some cynical angle? There are better angels.
Ann, Jewish Currents is a communist front publication. Nobody is accusing you of anything except perhaps being naive by not knowing this. It's not in your wheel house, but it does contextualize.
No publication comes from nowhere.
December 25 was probably chosen to counter the pagan celebration of the sun.
That’s a common misconception, although the fact of Christ’s light coming into the world at the solstice seems too good to be coincidental and God certainly could have planned it that way. That also tracks with the idea that pagans and all other religious seekers were worshipping what they could observe and intuit even though they hadn’t yet experienced the revelations that were received by the Jews.
Anyway, the date is from Scripture but you have to do a bit of sleuthing to figure it out by noting the timeline of Jesus’ conception as it related to John the Baptist’s. More detail and citations of the relevant Bible verses at the link below.
https://www.catholic365.com/article/11926/yes-december-25th-is-the-biblical-date-of-christmas.html
Farmer: Where do Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and Quakers fall into this scheme? Actual Christians or professing Christians."
I don't know, but I'm quite sure God does.
Fictional persona are not the only elements that have added to Christmas becoming more materialistic. The act of gift giving has become one of the major aspects of Christmas. Black Friday and Cyber Monday have increased and encouraged shopping for Christmas presents. Christmas cards are also a part of the Christmas market. Decorations such as lights and wreaths, along with wrapping paper, claim people’s money. A grand aspect of Christmas’ commercialism is how much money Americans spend on Christmas each and every year (in 2021 retail sales reached $886.7 billion and growing, tell me that isn't commercialism.
Christmas has also turned into more of a cultural holiday in the U.S.; it is no longer a purely religious event. A study done by Pew Research Center found that about 81% of non-Christians celebrate Christmas. The survey also found that Americans of other faiths celebrate; nearly three-quarters of Asian-American Buddhists and Hindus commemorate Christmas. Overall, the American Christmas has become less of a religious holiday and more of a commercial one. Both Christians and non-Christians participate in the commercial aspect of Christmas, but non-Christians do not celebrate the religious significance. It's a Holiday and what you make of (my wife of 40 years is like a little kid from singing Christmas carols playing from October on) it. And It's wonderful when you have tons of small grandchildren to share in the myths of Santa and the elves and reindeer and for a Christian who believes it's the time set forth to worship the child Jesus who came to the world as a sacrifice to bring you in to eternity as a professed believer accepting Him as your personal savior and Lord, even more wonderful.
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