How to Lose the Chip on Your Shoulder During Christmas

We Jews have two choices in our approach to the Christmas season: resent it, or embrace it. I for one vote for a big, sloppy embrace. In the name of love thy neighbor and tolerance, I say we hug it out with Christmas already and teach our kids to do the same.

Why? We expect our non-Jewish co-workers, friends, and neighbors to show heaps of interest and concern in all things Jewish. During the High Holy Days we ask our kids’ teachers not to assign big tests after those long days at shul. We offer unsolicited explanations about why Hanukkah is not, despite unfortunate evidence to the contrary, the most important event on our calendar. For the week of Passover we bore everyone we know with the reasons we’re eating matzah and other weird stuff. (Yes, gentile co-worker, that “Kosher for Passover” salad dressing seems over the top to me, too.)

Tolerance is a two-way street. It would be chutzpadik and a bad example to our kids not to muster up some genuine interest in a holiday celebrated by a significant majority of our fellow citizens. So with that being said…

10 Steps to Lose the Attitude at Christmas

1. Stop lecturing everyone who says Merry Christmas. “Merry Christmas” doesn’t mean, “We want to convert you.” It doesn’t mean, “The Cossacks are coming so pack up the chickens.” More than anything it tends to replace, “Have a nice day.” Realistically, it also conveys, “I’ve been working this shift for nine hours, and I could not care less what holiday you celebrate or don’t.”

2. Eat peppermint bark. It’s chocolatey. It’s minty. It’s joy.

3. Get yourself invited to a Christmas party. Growing up in a heavily Jewish-populated suburb of Chicago, I was unaware of the Christmas happenings sprinkled throughout the month. Now that I’m raising my family in a neighborhood where we are among the few Jews, I love that we get invited to Christmas teas, tree-decorating parties, open houses, cocktail parties, and more. Show that you’re open to experiencing someone else’s traditions. It works both ways. I, for one, feel personally responsible for exposing many of my neighbors to Sukkot, or as they affectionately call it, “the holiday when you put that big fort in your yard.”

4. Appreciate Christmas break. They aren’t canceling school and days of work for Hanukkah and Kwanza, y’all.

5. Participate in the Jewiest Christmas tradition of all–The Cookie Exchange. If you’re not aware of the frenetic cookie baking and eating that happens during the month of December, then you’re missing out. Get thee to a cookie exchange pronto. We’re talking infinite varieties of cookies and an atmosphere subtly laced with the taste of competition. This is a tradition that speaks our language.

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Beating the Blues: How to Handle Holiday Stress and Depression

We’re in the midst of the holiday season, which can be a time of great joy. But, for some, it can also bring on higher amounts of stress and anxiety and depression. Experiencing the “holiday blues” isn’t uncommon, but it doesn’t have to ruin your December. Here are some tips and tricks for beating the blues and enjoying the holidays!

Find the root cause of your depression

One of the most important things you can do if you’re feeling sad is sit down and try to pinpoint what is causing the feeling.

Did you lose someone you were close to this year? Do the holidays make you feel anxious about what the next year will bring? Do you feel like you aren’t invited to enough holiday events? Do you feel like you’ve got too many events?

All of these issues and feelings may be heightened during this time. If you can figure out what is causing your depression and it’s situational, you can take steps to fix it.

Eat right 

If you’re dieting, the holidays can be a minefield of extravagant meals and temptations of extra desserts. Following a strict diet can be difficult during this time of year, and if you slip up, it can cause you to become depressed. Combat this by coming up with a plan ahead of time. If you’re going to a holiday party, eat healthier for the rest of the day. Remind yourself that one cookie is not going to derail your entire diet, and enjoy things in moderation.

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Has This Product Solved The December Dilemma?

Let me set the scene. David Levy, Managing Editor of JewishBoston.com, declared:

If Manischewitz can market Chanukah gingerbread houses, I declare the “December Dilemma” officially solved.

What do you think? Will this kit, complete with white and blue icing and decorations, solve your gingerbread house needs? Would you make one with your family? Would your in-laws approve?

Just between you and me, I kinda love it. And maybe wanted to buy it a few months back when I first saw it in stores. And, because I’m a bit of a Jewish nerd, I love that the kit includes a mezuzah to affix to the vanilla cookie home’s doorway.

And, for the next day or so, JoyOfKosher.com is giving away a kit to one lucky winner. Enter now!

Dreidels

TEST-DRIVING dreidels at the Jewish Museum Shop on the Upper East Side, David Alhadeff, 38, turned into a child again. A look of pure glee crossed his face whenever he got a particularly good “spinner,” as he put it.

Never mind the unsolicited comments from the shoppers who gathered around him.

“You only get five tries,” one older gentleman told Mr. Alhadeff, the owner of the Future Perfect stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn, while watching the action (or lack thereof) with one particular model.

And a woman visiting from Napa, Calif., advised: “The cheap wood ones are the best.”

Mr. Alhadeff was inclined to agree. The wooden ones were the kind he played with as a child at the Seattle Hebrew Academy, but he claims that his hand-eye coordination is much better now. “The gleam you see in my eyes today is because I actually got these things spinning,” he said.

Buoyed by his success, Mr. Alhadeff went in search of more modern dreidels, but was surprised to find that, unlike the wide selection of modern menorahs, the modern dreidel pickings were slim. His theory: “It’s because it’s a kids’ game. It’s a piece of nostalgia for an adult to receive a dreidel, whereas receiving a nice menorah is receiving a relevant Judaica gift that you will use.”

Jonathan Adler was one of the few designers who offered several options. “He’s a great designer and a Jew, so it makes sense he not only did a dreidel, but did it from a modern perspective,” Mr. Alhadeff said. “They’re cute, fun and fit into the new modern lifestyle.”

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Hanukkah Gifts: A history of the practice and some tips for parents

Most American Jews can rattle off a list of Hanukkah traditions such as lighting the menorah each night; playing dreidel games; eating foods cooked in oil; and giving gifts. However, many wonder if this last tradition is really a Jewish tradition, or whether Hanukkah presents just came about in reaction to Christmas.
A Brief History

Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, explains that Jews used to exchange gifts only on Purim, but in the late 19th century there was a shift from Purim to Hanukkah. Christmas itself became magnified in the late 19th century when it became a national holiday in America. The Jewish custom shifted in imitation of Christmas, as its consumerism grew.shop our hanukkah store

Sarna distinguishes the practice of giving Hanukkah gifts from its precursor--Hanukkah gelt (Yiddish for money): "Hanukkah gelt is an old custom, well attested in Europe. Gift giving, by contrast, is new.?

The precise origin of Hanukkah gelt is unclear. The most popular explanation is that coins became a symbol of the holiday because the ancient Jews' ability to make their own coins was a symbol of the independence they gained in the battles that the festival of lights commemorates.

In his book Holidays, History and Halakhah, Eliezer Segal argues that the earliest sources that mention gelt on Hanukkah are about students in Europe giving gelt to their teachers. Segal suggests that this practice was perhaps inspired by semantic and etymological connections between the Hebrew word Hanukkah (dedication) and the Hebrew word hinnukh (education).

According to Segal, some Jewish communities used the Hanukkah season to recognize religious teachers who, because of the prohibition of accepting money for teaching Torah, would normally not accept payment for their work. Segal suggests that students whose parents gave them money to pass on to their teachers eventually started to ask for their own share of gelt. This might be the source of the custom to give gelt to children on Hanukkah.


Contemporary Parents

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Hanukkah, A Short History

Hanukkah, the "Festival of Lights," starts on the 25th day of the Jewish calendar month of Kislev and lasts for eight days and nights. In 2012, Hanukkah begins at sundown on December 8. With blessings, games, and festive foods, Hanukkah celebrates the triumphs--both religious and military--of ancient Jewish heroes.

Hanukkah is a relatively minor holiday in the Jewish year. In the United States, however, its closeness to Christmas has brought greater attention to Hanukkah and its gift-giving tradition. Amid the ever-growing flood of Christmas advertising, it may seem especially fitting that the Hanukkah story tells of Jewish culture surviving in a non-Jewish world.
The Hanukkah Story

Nearly 2,200 years ago, the Greek-Syrian ruler Antiochus IV tried to force Greek culture upon peoples in his territory. Jews in Judea - now Israel- were forbidden their most important religious practices as well as study of the Torah. Although vastly outnumbered, religious Jews in the region took up arms to protect their community and their religion. Led by Mattathias the Hasmonean, and later his son Judah the Maccabee, the rebel armies became known as the Maccabees.

After three years of fighting, in the year 3597, or about 165 B.C.E., the Maccabees victoriously reclaimed the temple on Jerusalem's Mount Moriah. Next they prepared the temple for rededication -- in Hebrew, Hanukkah means "dedication." In the temple they found only enough purified oil to kindle the temple light for a single day. But miraculously, the light continued to burn for eight days.


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Eight Nights of Chanukah: A Spiritual Perspective

Gifts and gadgets, latkes and dreidels are only part of the Chanukah story. Indeed, the eight nights of Chanukah provide eight opportunities to learn and think about Jewish values while taking in the glow of the dancing Chanukah lights.

Let Inner Goodness Shine - Eight Nights of Important Values.

Each value begs for discussion.

1. What does Jewish tradition have to say about these values?

2. How has Jewish history shaped the way Jews relate to these values? 

3.  Why are these values important?

4. How do we express the values in our day to day lives?

5.  In an ideal world, how would we work to change the world to better reflect these goals?

6. How can we include this idealized version into our busy lives today?

7. Who do you know that personifies each of these values?

8. What has happened to you to show you the importance of these values?

Additional Spiritual Spins:

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