Member-only story
The Joy and Uniqueness of Multi-Celebration For the Holidays
As many families do, my family celebrates more than one holiday during what we in the United States like to refer to as “the holiday season.” The holiday season typically spans from Thanksgiving Day to New Years Day.
There are a lot of holidays that take place in December. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, Las Posadas, Diwali or the Chinese New Year, or any combination of the aforementioned, the holiday season can look quite different from household to household.
Growing up, my family celebrated many things. My dad is Jewish and my mom, who converted when they got married, was from a Catholic family. We simply ‘did’ Jewish holidays with my dad’s side and Christian holidays with my mom’s side.
Looking back, this was a wonderful way to grow up.
It taught me early on that different people do different things; that was the simple and important take-away. There was no good or bad, right or wrong, just different.
What I always thought was funny was that my Jewish friends talked about wanting a Christmas tree and my Christian friends talked about wanting to get presents for eight nights. (Don’t we always want what we don’t have?)
