Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sdcrdcf.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!barryg From: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Barry Gold) Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish Subject: Re: Christmas {report} card Message-ID: <1632@sdcrdcf.UUCP> Date: Sun, 30-Dec-84 16:24:10 EST Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.1632 Posted: Sun Dec 30 16:24:10 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 1-Jan-85 06:00:30 EST References: <2028@nsc.UUCP> <2031@nsc.UUCP> <1014@aecom.UUCP> <4652@tektronix.UUCP> Reply-To: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Barry Gold) Distribution: net Organization: System Development Corp. R+D, Santa Monica Lines: 41 Summary: I sent the following essay (mimeographed) to my friends one December several years back. None of them got offended. And I now get remarkably fewer "Merry Christmas" cards (and more "Seasons Greetings" ones). On my hearth are over a dozen Christmas cards. I don't send them myself. Partly because I'm Jewish. Partly because I'm not an enthusiastic supporter of the American Greeting Card Industry. The whole thing fills me with feelings of mingled nervousness and annoyance -- with a dash of aesthetic pleasure at some of the pretty pictures. I wish there were a more appropriate time of year to get such cards. Couldn't there be a Friends Day? Or couldn't friends send cards for New Year's instead of for religious holidays? Christmas is for me a yearly reminder not of the fact that I live in a land of people who believe in an alien religion, but of the fact that I live in a land of people who place more emphasis on their reilgious rituals than on their religious beliefs. The essence of the American Christmas is the ritual and its trappings; not prayer and piety. No one would ask me to participate in the latter: it would seem too obviously ludicrous. But a people that observes ritual sees no reason why those of a different belief shouldn't observe the same ritual. So as a child I was taught to sing Christmas carols in scool, and now I get Christmas cards. And people wish me "Merry Christmas" when I shop--and I never know what to answer. It's as bad as writing thank you ntoes for presents you didn't want. But then of course you could always say, "Thank you for thinking of me." What's a good, smooth way to thank a person for thinking of you but not enough to notice your religion? What would Christians think if Pagans wished them a Happy Samhain? As an outsider, I find Christmas a beautiful spectacle. The carols are lovely. I used to wish my Jewish holidays had as many pretty songs. One day it occurred to me to wonder what sort of songs Jewish writers like Irving Berlin and George Gershwin might have written if they'd lived in a culture where you could make lots of money writing songs for Jewish holidays. There are some wonderful old mvoies too: "The Bishop's Wife," "Miracle on 34th Street," Menotti's opera "Amahl and the Night Visitors." They're not derived from my religion, but then neither are the cultures in a lot of science books I read. I love them anyway. Christmas is beautiful. It's not my holiday, though, and I find it becomes ugly only when people try to pretend that it is IS somehow my holiday. Lies are always ugly. --Lee Gold