Rant #3,852: Do It Again

Tonight it is Christmas Eve, leading into Christmas Day, and to celebrate the occasion, I am going to repost one of my absolutely favorite Blog entries--

From all the way back to September 25, 2016.

This Rant, #410, discusses what Jews like myself and my family do on Christmas Day.

This entry is slightly edited, bit it is as timely as it was nine years ago.

Here it is.

"This is a seemingly age-old question.

With much of the country celebrating Christmas, what do those that don't celebrate this holiday do on December 25?

Well, I can't speak for Muslims, atheists, or other groups that don't celebrate the holiday, but I can speak for Jewish people, since I am one.

Rather than go with the flow, like many Jews do--and what I mean by that is that they actually have the audacity to set up their homes as if they celebrated Christmas, including lighting "Hanukkah bushes"--many Jews, including myself, take a philosophical approach to the whole thing.

We look at it as a day off, and little more.

Sure, the rest of the world, or at least our world, celebrates this holiday, and we are bombarded by the media so we don't forget that fact.

But for me, it is simply a day off.

So we take slight advantage of being off on the holiday, but really, only a slight advantage.

You've probably heard the term "Jewish Christmas," which characterizes what some ignorant people feel about Hanukkah, which just ended. I find this truly repugnant, but to illustrate what many Jews do on Christmas, I am using it here. 

What Jews do on Christmas while they have a day off is to go to the movies and eat either kosher deli or Chinese food.

Yes, that is what we do.

The movies have always been open on Christmas for as long as I can remember. So we take our families and see whatever movies are playing.

And as for eating, well, the standard used to be that kosher deli and Chinese food were the only things available on Christmas day, but that is changing.

Many fast food restaurants now open on Christmas Day. I know that Burger King started this practice a few years ago, and now other such establishments are following suit.

Honestly, I have no problem with this. I am sure they are paying their workers (or at least I hope they are paying their workers) double and triple overtime for working this day. And on my end, why should I not have this choice of food if that is what I want (probably not, but I should still have the choice).

So now you know what Jews do on Christmas. I am sure many of us go visiting our non-Jewish friends on this day, but it is really funny, most Jews I know go to the movies and eat Chinese food on December 25.

Sometimes, it is nice being on the outside looking in."

This year, tonight, we will be going to my wife's youngest brother's home, and on the big day, my family and I are visiting my sister and her family, so the movies are out, and who knows what we will be eating?

But it should be two fun days.

In the past, particularly when the kids were young, we would go to a movie and eat Chinese food, but today, the prices are outrageous for less-than-worth-it product on both ends, but I bet that if we weren't going to my sister on Christmas, we would at least have Chinese food to nosh on.

Have a great holiday, and I will be back at the blog on Friday, December 26, which happens to be my sister's birthday, Boxing Day in England, Kwanzaa, and now, due to our President's thinking, one of our newest federal holidays, implemented simply to extend the holiday cheer another day (along with today, supposedly for federal workers only).

I remember that at my former job, there were one or two December 24ths that I was the only employee there, because everyone else took off that day. The higher-ups were in and out, and I remember that one of those years, I had to work a full day, which made no sense, since the people we dealt with in Washington and around the world were also off, but heck, I couldn't say I needed off to finish my Christmas shopping, could I now?

In fact, the President's proclamation--which is not in effect this year--makes Hanukkah the only one of the "major" winter holidays without a day off for followers and non-followers alike, but since the holiday is on a different day every year--due to the use of a different calendar, some years it is even in November--it is hard to give a day off to a holiday that is so fluid in motion.

That's OK--as I said a thousand times, Hanukkah does not have to compete with the other holidays, as it as unique from the other celebrations as can be.

So whatever holiday you follow, have a good one, and I will see you back here on Friday.