Anyway, halloween is one of my favorites. When I lived in NYC for college I went to the halloween parade for a few years, and it was pretty much the best most fun/memorable time I ever had. Last year me and a friend carved pumpkins, which was the first time I ever did that. It was awesome! I love crafty things of all kind, and carving pumpkins is a unique crafty experience...kind of like sculpting, but first I drew out my design, so there was drawing involved as well. I was too busy this year to take the time to do so (I had a comprehensive exam for my phd program last week), but here's a picture of the one I carved last year:
This year I guess my costume is a responsible adult, since today (like every other day I teach) I "dressed up" in a suit. Little do my students know that behind my suit-disguise is a former-dreadie mama neo-hippie/deadhead. :)
This year I will also celebrate christmas for the first time, when I go to B's parents house for both christmas and new years. I'm excited to go out and get him and his parents some gifts...I've never actually done holiday shopping before, but I really like the idea of one day a year where everybody gets presents! I'm going to get his mom a weird/funky teapot of some kind, since his mom has a teapot collection...not sure what I'm going to get his dad yet (maybe a cookbook? He loves to cook and watches the food network all day).
Reminder to self: post about B and gender roles....
I've always been a completely secular Jew and I never much practiced Judaism in any meaningful way or believed in God.
ReplyDeleteI have to say I can't identify with your desire to celebrate Christmas. Even though my husband's family who I love are Catholic and we've been together for 27 years, I still find the whole goyishness of Christmas a tad offputting for my sensibilities.
Halloween I have no problem with.
nice steal your face!!
ReplyDeleteI can see making the argument that Halloween is now a secular holiday, but Christmas, no way. It's purely Christian and they adapted it from pagan traditions, so I could never celebrate Christmas and wouldn't feel comfortable in a situation where it was celebrated.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I have to wonder how B's family is going to react if you celebrate Christmas with them when you're Jewish by birth and aren't professing Christianity.
They might expect you to participate in something that can be passed off as secular,but they might wonder how you could in good conscience participate in something they'd consider religious.
Different anonymous
Hey Babe...listen to words of that gadol ha'dor..Adam Sandler
ReplyDeletewow anonymous #1, talk about blind hatred. :) And if you knew anything about christmas, you would know that it was adopted from a pagen holiday, and that for the majority of people in the US it has pretty much no religious connotations. I go to my job's christmas party every year, does that mean I'm a christian? No, and it has nothing to do with jesus, there are no baby jesuses, just santa claus and some greenery, to mark what the holiday actually originally celebrated...the winter solstice.
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to celebrate it by becoming christian or wearing a cross. That's ridiculous, and i don't even know why you would say that- actually i do, since you are clearly orthodox, and orthodox people love to spew hatred about things they have a tengential understanding of at best.
anon #2; B's family knows i'm jewish by birth. B is an atheist, his dad is an atheist, his mom is catholic, yes, but I know i'm not going to be doing anything religous ...if only becuase B hates religion, and he wouldn't even go home for christmas if it was religious in any way. We've talked about the way his family celebrates, and they just have a tree, a really nice sit down meal, and exchange gifts. He says there is nothing religious at all about it except that his mom and sister go to mass (and we will not be going to that).
Finally, even if it was religious, I would be interested in going anyways, just becuase I'm always curious about how other people (meaning not orthodox jewish people) celebrate their religious holidays. It doesn't mean i'm going to join their religion, but i love seeing the way different familys do their holiday thing. Last year I went to a non-jewish person's thanksgiving dinner and we ate chocolate fondue and some distant relatives of my friend were discussing how people should go to church or they will burn in hell or something....doesn't mean I'm going to start going to church just becuase I heard that.
Why can't I be interested in the way other cultures celbrate their holidays? How does that mean I'm going to convert to christanity? (believe me, i'm an atheist, i'm not converting to anything). How is that any different than people who invite their non jewish friends over to a pesach seder? That doesn't mean they are trying to convert those people to judaism, but just trying to promote a greater understanding of their culture. I see nothing wrong in going to religious or non religious events of not jewish religions...I don't beleive in god, and they are not going to convert me to anything, so why not experience new things! :)
im the first anon
ReplyDeleteim just saying that from youre blog it comes across as if you hate evrything about being jewish that you would never celebrate any jewish holliday but a holliday from another religion you jump to celebrate and even complain that you were never able to celebrate
btw im not judgeing you im just pointing out that what you write comes across as if you have a personal vendetta against judiasm
I did and do celebrate jewish holidays as well..for rosh hashona me and B had a special dinner with challah and honey and pomegranites, this past purim I went to my parents house and to a big family dinner at my cousin's place...I usually do stuff for sukkot and chanukah (although this year I had to skip sukkot becuase I was waaay too busy to go anywhere)- last year I went to a chanukah party and we all made latkes together. It was awesome as well.
ReplyDeleteAnd maybe I do have something against judaism. Like if I wanted to go home for a jewish holiday at my parents I would be forced to stay there for however long the holiday was, and not able to do ANYTHING the entire time.
Maybe what I want is a holiday kind of atmosphere with families coming together and having a nice time...at B's house last july 4th we all had a bbq and his family was joking and telling stories about when they grew up and making fun of each other a little bit. When I went home for purim, the whole time my mother was making little snippy remarks about me not being religious, my dad was taking every opportunity he could to argue with me about religion, and my grandmother told me to "improve" and that i'm not doing good in her eyes, becuase even though i'm well on a way to a phd, am supporting myself, am happy, all of that is meaningless to her because I'm not religious. Not being religious has pretty much sucked the fun out of any holiday together with my parents- and I"m not the one bringing this stuff up, it's my parents who have decided we can't have a decent time together the 2 or 3 times we see each other each year, becuase they keep bringing up all this shit.
Alls that is to say that I think i'm more excited about christmas at B's house becuase I love his family, more so than it being about any particular holiday. On the other hand, christmas was always depressing to me since everyone was going on about spending time with their family, all the fun they would have, shopping for each other, and for me it was like ...eh, i'm not even going home, my parents use the christmas season to go on vacation since they get off from work.
So yeah, in sum, for me holidays and jewishness and my family is all mixed up together.
Anon #1 needs to learn how to spell, seriously (huge pet peeve).
ReplyDeleteAnyway, as a former conservadox to baal tshuva to agnostic... with a brother who is very seriously dating a shiksa - i can see where you're coming from. The interesting thing i've noticed is, that it's not so much judaism you're disgusted with - it's the general attitude and close-mindedness that you can't stand. And you know, the fact that there's no god.
Christmas has always annoyed the hell out of me because i can't stand the music on the radio, the damned commercials, the cheesy movies that come out, the ugly lights that are up for freakin 3 months. But for you, I think you're longing for a closeness and respect you weren't getting - plus a fascination with something that was formerly forbidden. And if that's what Christmas is to you, go for it. My brother goes to his gf's house every year for xmas, but that doesn't make him any less of a jew.
You know, abandon, I just discovered your blog today and I've been browsing through it. It's my impression that you really need to spend some time reading my blog. I think you're making a few mistakes, if you don't mind my saying so.
ReplyDelete