Thanks for the excellent guest post.

We do make cookies and leave them out for Santa. The kids love that.

in the two years since i wrote that, i’ve reflected more on the evolution of our family’s holiday traditions…i’ve had to come to terms with the fact that i’m the only one in our family who celebrates christmas here in any way that approaches meaningful (my stepdaughter is always at her mom’s for christmas, and here for two of the eight nights of chanukah, so chanukah tends to be the winter holiday we focus on with her). our family doesn’t embrace christmas the way mine did when i was growing up.

as a jew who grew up on the edge of the bible belt, my partner doesn’t share my cultural-christian privilege; he is not as eager to adopt a syncretic approach to religion, and i don’t blame him. so i stopped dragging him to christmas eve services after a couple of years. it was important for me to share that part of my life with him at least once, but it was not so important that i felt justified asking him to relive the experience year after year, when it really does make him uncomfortable. where he grew up (a place he otherwise loves), my partner was told, explicitly and implicitly, (and often in school), that jews are just sort of christians who haven’t realized it. it took me a while to wrap my head around that and realize how privileged and disrespectful that mentality is; how even though it may well be an attempt to focus on what we have in common, it still centers christianity as the norm, the ideal, and any other religious traditions as the other or as some inferior (but “tolerable!”) versions of christianity. and unfortunately, christmas is the time of year when this attitude is pretty unapologetically in-your-face in western culture.

anyway, whee privilege. i know this totally wasn’t what you were asking for, but it’s what i’ve had to learn and accept about christmas in our family so far. right now the fact that SD’s mom is christian and her dad is jewish makes dividing the holidays pretty simple, and because i was raised a liberal la-la syncretic UU, it’s been pretty easy for me to embrace my partner’s jewish traditions to whatever extent works for us (although i’ve been careful to try to let him take the lead, and not to go appropriating it all because I’m So Open-Minded). personally, singing in a choir has helped me to get my christmas tradition ya-yas out. we spend christmas day exchanging presents with my family, but it’s never much of a production, especially since we have already exchanged some when SD is here for chanukah. i don’t know what we would do if we had other kids; i’d probably want to do more to celebrate christmas with them, but i’m not sure what or how much.

Also, we are focusing more on making things together & the enjoyment of creating. This year we are adding in making a variety of ornaments & hopefully we’ll be able to do this every year from now on.

Still believe in Santa. I look enough like the jolly old elf that kids mistake me for him. Even have the red suit. Shopping as a secret santa in the mall a few weeks ago a cute little girl said “look moma, theres santa”. Wasnt even in the suit, though I was wearing the hat.

St Nicholas was a historical human. The rest is the magic of belief.

As for the tree, I always have had one. One year I bought a live one and planted it afterwards. Last time I drove by that old house it was still growing there.