Hannuka and Christmas

[Dilbertian]

If you do both, how are you going to make each separate and special this year?

I hate when they overlap! We will do all our traditions for both holidays but moving latke night to Shabbat Chanukah and having some friends round for a wee Chanukah party to make it a bit special.

We do them with different people in different locations. Hanukkah is what "we" do, then we go to Christmas with family. We also do Christmas day on Christmas eve because it's more convenient for the family (10/10 recommend, it makes Christmas day so relaxing) so that helps to create separation this year. We're having a Hanukkah party/concert this year.

I don't know what to do re santa. I don't want to spoil the magic for other children, but I don't want to do it here. I also don't want dc to feel left out. What do others do?

Christmas is dh's thing, and our compromise is that it is a completely secular Christmas. If your dc go to a non-Jewish school it's very difficult to not pretend he exists - if you want to respect other families' beliefs. So we had Father Christmas as the Christmas Fairy, just as we had the Tooth Fairy, rather than as St Nicholas. Not that Santa is St Nicholas for most people.

This year will be particularly tricky, with the 1st candle on Christmas Day. OTOH it will be a nice thing to do that takes us away from Christmas stupor.

We didn't do Santa as that felt weird to me - I don't entirely know why and I can't justify where we fell with all this. It just felt inherently odd for my Jewish children, particularly with the nativities/carols/easter worksheets etc etc etc. I had to draw a line somewhere that felt right to me

I think it's relatively straightforward if your dc can say "We're Jewish. Santa comes to Christian children." There's no spoiling it for other children because yours don't need to keep any secrets. It's when you're in a mixed relationship and your non-Jewish OH does not want to give up Christmas that you have a trickier road to navigate.

We do Chanukah gifts from us / family and Father Christmas gives the children their stockings. When I was a kid, the stockings contained mainly chocolate (yum!) but we do a variety of stocking fillers for our DC.

I'm also loving the different spellings of Chanukah in this thread and am appreciating at least one other usage of the same spelling I use (which seems to have fallen out of favour). I wonder if it's age-related...

This made me smile because I only recently discovered that my children, who don't celebrate Christmas, attend an Orthodox Jewish school but have a mum who loves this time of year and fully embraces the season, believe in Santa. They know he doesn't come to them because they're Jewish but when they met Santa at IKEA the other day my older child asked me if it was the real one. And it made me unexpectedly happy that they still believe in the magic of the season :)

That really is quite sweet.

Non-Jewish people have often asked me if I felt I had missed out, especially when I was a child. But I never felt I missed out. Not only did we have Hanukkah, we got to enjoy all the same atmosphere as those celebrating Christmas - plus our parents would buy lots of (non-treif) Christmas goodies in the sales, for us to enjoy over New Year! And we had the occasional Hanumas party - mincemeat donuts 😋

Most Jewish Mumsnetters don't live in Israel, nor do we live in Golders Green. Many of us are in mixed-faith relationships. Our children mostly go to secular schools and church-affiliated schools, where this whole half-term has been building towards Christmas.

We have to navigate the reality of being 21st century Jews.

That reality is even more challenging this year, with the major distractions of Christmas Day, Boxing Day, NYE and NYD all falling within our festival of purity from outside cultures and influences.

I wouldn't say Hanukka is about Jewish isolationism or purity. It is about having the freedom to observe our own religious practices.

I don't see any irony in this thread. It's a discussion about living as Jews in a place where Christianity is the dominant culture.

I love a bit of Chrismukah!!
As a child we didn't do anything wrt Christmas, my parents didn't even display Xmas cards from neighbours or aquaintences! My dad volunteered on Xmas day and me and my mum chilled. As I got older I went out and got drunk Xmas eve and chilled on Xmas day with my mum.
Since being with my husband (also Jewish) we have done Xmas day - was at his mum's and now I've done it for the past few years.I love it as there's no 'pressure' for a 'perfect' Xmas as we're Jewish, we do a turkey and the trimmings, have Xmas crackers but that's it. No tree, and usually no presents except this year there will be chanukkah presents and lighting of the chanukiah later on!
My kids went to a non-denomintiall primary and used to moan about not having a tree but I said we are Jewish, we don't do a tree and Santa doesn't come to us (they were welcome to enjoy Santa at school). Some of their Jewish friends had trees, but I put my foot down on that one, we have enough 'traditons' of our own.