I’ve never celebrated Christmas. Ever.
When I was young, it never really crossed our minds – we weren’t Christian so it just wasn’t something our family did. I’ve never once had a Christmas tree in my house.
As I got older and started working in a professional career, I would usually go in to work on Christmas day – just because I objected to being told that I HAD to take a day off for some religion that I didn’t care one whit about. Usually, I wasn’t the only one there.
Except for a couple of “mandatory” gift exchanges at work, which were more office politics than anything, I’ve never given anyone a Christmas present.
And now that I have kids of my own, we all agree that it would be hypocritical to subject them to this custom just because of the social pressures of our society (which have unfortunately gotten worse over the years).
I also get annoyed at the “celebration envy” that many non-Christians fall into. Hanukah is a minor Jewish holiday which no one outside of the Jewish faith would have ever heard of if it weren’t for the questions of “so what DO you celebrate?” – the idea of a “Hanukah bush” is an embarrassing distortion and any self-respecting Jew wouldn’t dream of putting one in their house. And what’s up with all these Winter Solstice parties? More...