Yay for the Holidays!

[firaplays]

I hope everyone's been having a good holiday season! This is the first year in a really long time that Christmas and Hanukah are at the same time : p

[pulpfreeoj]

Happy holidays to everyone! Or if you don't celebrate any at this time, have a nice warm winter and a happy new year!

[midnight_spell360]

This is Kwanzaa's 50th year of being celebrated in the US. I don't know enough about this holiday, but my cousins celebrate Christmas & Hannukah, so I am more familiar with their traditions. 

 

My mom always likes to remind me that my sisters had it "harder" growing up without even hearing Christmas music or knowing what our cousins celebrated bc my dad wanted them to have a very firm identity in our religion. So my mom was okay- we won't watch the Christmas movies and we can stick to our holidays (Eid, one for the end of Ramadan -fasting and one for commemorating Prophet Abraham's obedience to the Lord, a 2-for -1 deal that I never could understand why Hallmark didn't grab that idea for Eid cards?)  but we still can tell our family that we love them and give them "end-of-the year" gifts (when we were all small). However, my oldest sister, now 27, had seen snippets of Christmas movies-turning channels before parental intervention, and developed a "Christmas Man" story that took on a legend of its own.

   As my mom recalls, she met a Pakistani friend in the mall near Christmas time and while my  mom & she were catching up, my sister was staring intensely at the line of children waiting to see Santa & have their picture taken-most of them were crying. So my sister, then 4 yr.s old, interrupts my mother by saying, "Mom! Mom! I know why all those kids are crying!" My mother's friend stops and just looks at her and says, "What? Why are who crying?" My sister loudly & proudly points to all the children in line just a few feet away. "These kids! " to which many mothers now are shooting all kinds of looks at my mom, her friend, & my sister. Her friend continues,"Okay, sweetie, why are the children crying?" My sister shouts very loudly, "I wouldn't want to take a picture with a man who steals food and has a gun!!!!" Total panic ensued! My mother whisks my sister & her friend up an escalator to avoid a mob of angry mothers and on the escalator, my mother's friend turns to her and says, "WHAT have you been telling this child about Christmas??!!" Turns out, my sister had seen parts of "Trading Places" with Dan Akroyd & Eddie Murphy and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and developed almost a fear of the Christmas Man that comes down a chimney ("If he was a friend, he would come to your door and not sneak down your chimney!" she would say) to obviously take things. And it took a lot of talking out but it's funny today & a lesson to talk out everything or kids will fill in the blanks with unexpected answers!

Happy Holidays everyone! :rolleyes_anim:

[life_eclectic]

Wow, that's a good point, being that Christmas is the biggest holiday in the US, kids are bound to see things about it, even if their parents don't celebrate it. I can see how the concept of Santa could seem odd to someone from an outside perspective.

 

My family is not very religious, but my mom was Jewish and my dad Christian, so we celebrated aspects of Hanukkah and Christmas as kids. Then my mom got interested in Wicca, which is a nature and earth based religion. That has a celebration of the Winter Solstice where there is also a tree that is decorated and gifts are given as well, though they are traditionally hand made, but don't have to be. Now my mom would still have those beliefs though she has passed and my dad is more agnostic, as am I. My sister is Jewish. I still respect the religious traditions with which I grew up. I probably identify (so to speak) the most with Wicca because I love nature and animals, however I think in all religions (not just what I mentioned) there are beautiful customs, traditions and lessons. I think it's really neat all the different beliefs and various holidays that are celebrated around this time!