Maybe I Should Take a Sledge Hammer Next Time
In a recent blog I explained why "Chanukah is not "Christmas with aTwist". I didn’t come up with the idea for that blog because I had nothing better to blog about. The fact is that many people don’t know differently and it is personally important for me to explain the differences between the two holidays.
Moving right along on this subject, I stayed at my daughter’s preschool this morning to talk to the children about Chanukah. I read to them from an excellent and beautifully illustrated book. Then my daughter Ella passed out dreidels and chocolate gelt (Yiddish word for money) to each of the children. Kids are so smart and their brains aren’t cluttered with garbage like us adults. They followed the story, asked intelligent questions, and were good listeners.
These 16 three and four year olds understood what I had told them. They know the Christmas story and I don' t believe for one minute that they saw any correlation between the two holidays. Nothing was mentioned about Christmas; I was not giving a lecture on comparing and contrasting Christmas and Chanukah. By the time I got up to leave, their eyes sparkled with excitement.I stood up and thanked the teacher for letting Ella and I share. She thanked me as well, and then turned to the children and said:
You see, Chanukah is just like Christmas.
I almost fainted. But instead of walking away I stopped and said, “No, not really, it’s about …..." and did a super speed review of what all I'd shared with them. No confrontation with the teacher (we are on excellent terms) just clarification.
Now you be the judge and jury - should I have taken a sledge hammer along with me?
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How Funny
The teacher must have felt it was more important to gloss over the differences and focus on the few commonalities regardless of their emphasis in the respective religions. But, it is great that she gave you and Ella a platform to share anyway.
Funny
It's funny, you have to admit. However, I would have been beyond furious, so I totally sympathize with you. I imagine what the teacher was trying to do was let your daughter (and any other Jewish kids) feel like she wasn't weird just because she doesn't celebrate Christmas.
Think about this, though - the kids understood the differences in the two holidays, after your lecture. So that statement by the teacher instantly lost her some credibility with her students. They know better.
When I was a kid I envied my Jewish classmates. They got presents for 8 days and got to eat latkes! I got mostly practical things like clothes and maybe just 2-3 toys, no latkes, and it was all over in less than an hour. Then we had to clean up, and my parents were cranky all day from lack of sleep. The whole Christmas story didn't even make sense to me until about 5th grade.
Happy Chanukah!
We don't do the presents for
We don't do the presents for 8 days, but I really do love the fact that Chanukah is stretched out over 8 days. We make pretty darn good latkes around here (with variations such as latkes from sweet potatoes) and (sufganiot) sugar donuts, which is more of a tradition in Israel than in the U.S.