Posted on 12/13/2001 1:04:16 AM PST by 2Trievers
I AM CATHOLIC and my wife is Jewish, so in our house we celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas, which our sons Tom and Jack regard as an excellent thing. People sometimes ask me if it is hard to raise children in respect and love for two great faiths that have a slight doctrinal disagreement between them, and I say: Not if you give them presents every day for eight days of Hanukkah and for Christmas. The more Gods the merrier, is Tom and Jack’s strong belief. Like other parents, we try not to let the materialism get out of hand and to keep the focus on the sacred. This year, on the first day of Hanukkah, we gave Tom, 5, a realistic, detachable, revolving red police cruiser roof light so that he may follow the ancient Jewish holy practice of impersonating a state trooper. He received the gift with appropriate reverence. We gave Jack, 2, some Silly Putty. He received the gift in his hair, and now he is in a fine shape to play the role in the Christmas pageant of the Wondering Child With a Bald Spot. Actually, Jack has not been cast in a pageant. Tom has, though. He has a walk-on in the pageant staged by our local Unitarian church. There was a rehearsal the other Sunday after the service, which featured the lighting of a menorah (during which apologies were offered to anyone who might take offense at a lighting before sundown), followed by the traditional singing of the great Christian hymn “Oh, Mitten Tree” (during which the faithful paraded around a tree that was decked, in fact, with mittens). A Unitarian pageant turns out to be different than a Roman Catholic one. In Tom’s pageant, Jesus Christ is celebrated as “a very special person” and “a great rabbi” and an all-around asset to the community. The Son-of-God debate, which has proved so regrettably contentious over the years, is not mentioned. No doubt this is all to the good. There is too much disputation around Christmas anyway. One growing issue is the white vs. colored lights debate. Like all matters of taste, this is also a matter of class. White lights are high-class; colored lights are somewhat less so. White lights make the statement that one is a refined sort who appreciates that less is more and who celebrates Christmas (and life in general) in such a fashion that one would not be absolutely mortified if Martha Stewart dropped by unexpectedly for tea. Colored lights make the statement that one is the sort of person who believes that Christmas is not Christmas without an electric sled and reindeer on the lawn, an electric Santa on the roof, an electric Frosty by the front gate and an electric Very Special Person in a manger on the porch. Most of the houses in my neighborhood are white-light houses, and I have to admit they are lovely, but I was raised in a colored-light family, and I am raising Tom and Jack to be colored-light men too. They do not take a lot of convincing on this. Boys are naturally colored-lighters. We got up the first three strings of our lights the weekend before last, and another two last weekend, at which time we threw away the rotted Halloween pumpkin. I might have gotten more lights up by now except that the remaining three strings are not working. To fix them you have to go through and find the burned-out bulb and replace it, and there are a lot of bulbs in a string, and the whole enterprise is one of those things that leads Daddy to point out that this is really the sort of job Mommy does better, and Mommy claims that she doesn’t know how to do it because she wasn’t raised in a colored-light family. This is a cop-out, and unworthy of her. Still, I am confident we will get all the lights up by New Year’s, and all down by Easter. In my family, it was considered poor form to leave the lights up past Easter; it suggested shiftlessness. One elderly woman in our neighborhood did leave her lights up, and also her tree, and her electric Santa, all year around. But she was considered a special case and no one held it against her. This may have been because everyone back then was a colored-light person. Colored-lighters are more relaxed about this sort of thing than white-lighters. But that was judgmental, wasn’t it? I should not be judgmental. I learned that from the Unitarians. Colored-lighters aren’t any better than white-lighters; we are all special persons. Very. Michael Kelly is the editor of Atlantic Monthly magazine and is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire.
Simple question to this guy's kids: DO YOU BELIEVE JESUS IS THE TRUE SON OF GOD, OR NO?
If yes, you're Catholic. If no, you're Jewish.
There's no "in-between". It's a yes or no question.
He has a walk-on in the pageant staged by our local Unitarian church.
"Well not the Unitarians. If that's the one true faith, I'll eat my hat." --Homer Simpson
Seriously, though, white. Gotta have white lights.
Not to take away from the important discussion on the color of the lights, if anyone is considering an "interfaith" marriage, please read "Mixed Blessings" by Rachel Cowan.
Problem with this is that Jesus never said he was "a very special person" or "a great rabbi". Jesus never got into a debate as to who he was. Jesus clearly said who he was -- he said he was/is God.
whiteEuropean-American lights vs.coloredlights of color
how about apologies for lighting a Menorah in a church? No offense to my wonderful Christian friends here at FR, but if you aren't messianic why would you WANT a Jewish religious symbol in your church? His Jewish wife's poor great grand-parents must be rolling in their graves:
Chanukah commemorates a military rebellion to throw non-Jewish religious statues/idols OUT of the synagogues, and to fight for the right to observe the Sabbath, to keep Kosher, and to keep the Covenant of Circumcision for Jewish male children, all for which Jews were being killed for observing.
The silent holocaust...
Festivus hugs
2T
Yeah! An' I bet you have a buncha little white pointy hats for all dem white lights! Dats why da Rainbow PUSH Cooalition is gonna require dat every string o' lights have an equal amount of "lights of color" on 'em! We gonna stamp out incadescent discrimination!
I find it offensive that you DON'T have lights!!!
In other words, "Neither my wife nor I have a concept of God we take very seriously, but we were born something and have never had the conviction to become anything else...."
Dan
Biblical Christianity web site
Dan
(c;
Exactly. How do they handle the obvious incompatibility? Is Jesus the Messiah one day, but not the next?
People who "play" religion with their kids like this have absolutely no clue what either of their religions mean.
I have never for the life of me understood why any sentient being would say he "is" something he isn't. Why say you're a Roman Catholic, religious Jew, Buddhist, Christian, whatever, if you're not doing something about it? It isn't skin-color or height, for crying out loud; it's a voluntary association relating to beliefs and convictions. So find out what's true, and go for it. Or tell everyone you're too lazy or cowardly or dense or whatever.
I'm sure serious Roman Catholics enjoy hearing that Teddy Kennedy et al are also Roman Catholics as much as I, a baptistic Christian, enjoy hearing that Bill Clinton is one, too. Ick. Ick ick ick ick ick.
Dan
...kind of like the Johnnie Taliban family, huh?
His parents refuse to make any judgements about what he is doing. But do you think they would have been magnanimous if he had joined the U.S. Army?
His parents refuse to make any judgements about what he is doing. But do you think they would have been magnanimous if he had joined the U.S. Army? ***
Yes, I read that. I believe in becoming a self learner...with necessary guidance. ;o) But a self directed school, imo, would have no true accountability...obvious in this case. Then again, he had no accountability with his own parents.
LOL. All is relative with parents such as these. But I'm certain they would have yelled big time if they're precious son had joined any branch of the U.S. Military.
I compromised and put a red spot, a white spot and a blue spot on my home (with Old Glory proudly lit in the white spot), along with a tastefully lit red, white and blue garland on my fence.
My neighbors say it's not enough . . . . . (sigh)
As stated above, I'm a multicolored light gal, drive a WHITE car, and am a fabulous driver (25 years of driving with no tickets or accidents) . . .so there . . ;>P
Not NEARLY enough. If you aren't doubling your average electric bill in the month of December, it's not enough.
Full disclosure: we haven't hung light number one yet. When we do, they're colored, except on the tree, which gets steady-burning colored and flashing white.
Cokie and Steve Roberts are Catholic/Jewish, and you can see from them what that kind of marriage often produces: left-wing secular humanists who like to hang out with feminists and abortionists.
My nieces celebrate Hannukah and Christmas and don't know which end is up.
Okay, go ahead--flame away.
The "proper" lights to use is whichever ones the kids like best.
People in the highest classes could care less what anybody else thinks about them.
No... your lights must, as they are switched on, cause a brownout in the power grid. You must be able to read a small-print novel without squinting with the aid of these lights. You must make Clark Griswald look like a piker. Otherwise - you're just a Unitarian. ;-)
LOL - excellent point.
But don't you mean European-American Evil Slave Owner Christian lights vs. lights of color African-American Kwanzaa lights? Or is that a whole nuther thing? It's so hard these days to be PC - it's gotten WAAAAY to complicated.
Yes, and I'm sure Bill Clinton thinks of himself as a fundamentally truthful man.
Dan
(c;
WOOHOO!!!
Reminds me, a few years ago, back when I was co-owner of an extremely conservative newspaper, in the office we had a Christmas tree with white lights, red garlands and blue ornaments. In addition, there were scads of little upside down American flags all over it, and a Gadsden "Don't Tread on Me" flag on the top. It was a wondrous thing of great joy and beauty.
It'll be fun next year to see if the addition "stuck". :-)
Good God, NO.
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