I'm all for developing special traditions that will allow my daughter to identify with the family. In large part this will involve the Advent Calendar, maybe some help with decorations and, of course, lots of music and singing on the home stereo. However, I'd like for Rose to experience a continuity of tradition with the greater community as well. This is one of the reasons I'm back at church, after all, to introduce her to a variety of people in the hope that she can make some meaningful connections with like-minded people.
So here's where it gets complicated for me, because I know that in many of her other day-to-day interactions - at school, the YMCA and elsewhere - the default explanation for all the hoopla will be "it's Christmas, the birth of Christ". And I will likely find myself stating the UU position of inclusion and acceptance of the world's many religions and traditions. "But Dad," I can hear my increasingly inquisitive daughter saying, "why does everyone else just call it Christmas"? Or perhaps even, "But Dad, how can we honor a particular religion during this season if that religion doesn't itself celebrate Christmas"? I suppose that's the point when I'll send her to bed without her supper - that'll teach her to ask so many questions. ;-).
All the holiday imagery we see, the lights and colors, the bustle of shopping, the trees and the music, they all seem to turn inevitably back towards the Christian tradition. The focal point to any child who has ever been to the mall is going to be "C-Day" so long as there is Santa Claus to visit and toys to be yearned for. So this instinctive feeling I have to just go with the flow might not necessarily send the right message, but honoring the other religions seems a little shallow and hypocritical to me: I know so little about them myself. Giving the others a fair shake will involve some research and real attention and I suspect that any ritual involving "honoring other traditions" will be superficial at best. Call me lazy, but part of me really just wants to sit and enjoy my cup o' joe and let her have her fun.
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2 comments:
We have also struggled w/ this issue over the years. Now that we are out of the heavy-duty Santa years, I realize that it really wasn't necessary to sweat the small stuff.
We do Christmas because it's part of the larger culture, and because both my husband and I were raised as Catholics. I, too, have an affinity for the carols and a little "Glooooria!" chorus or "Silent Night" never fails to make me tear up a bit with nostalgia.
There are lots of great messages in Christmas:
*Giving is better than receiving (we're working extra hard on that one as we enter the impulsive "I want it now" teen phase);
* This holiday celebrates the birth of Jesus, a great teacher and historical figure who changed the world. There's that lovely ideal of peace on Earth. And the shepherds and kings story is always entertaining for kids.
* Before it was Christmas, it was all about winter solstice and marking the seasons of the Earth. We have always talked to Angela about the pagan origins of many Christmas symbols.
Somehow, whatever we did (even the mistakes) seems to have all worked out and Angela is well on her way to forming her own theology w/o the guilt baggage we grew up with.
One tradition we developed is really dear to us: We make sure to have a live tree each year (we cut it ourselves at a Tacoma tree farm). We take it down after Xmas, put the small branches in the yard waste bin and keep the main branches in the back yard until July or August. That's when we take it camping and watch it go up in smoke in our camp fire. The tree always invokes warm (pardon the pun) memories of our last Xmas holiday and makes us all feel very earthy as we gaze up at the stars.
Debbie,
Thanks for your response. Our experience on Christmas morning reinforced your observation that "it's all little stuff" when it comes to the greater theological issues surrounding the holiday. Simply watching her tear into her packages with increasing abandon was all the "religion" I needed that day ;-)
John
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