(no subject)

[batyatoon]

Tonight is the eighth and last night of Chanukah.

I've been wanting for a while to write up a few thoughts about this time of year: about Christmas decorations, and Your Holiday Here generic goodwill, and multiculturalism, and Hellenism, and a bunch of other stuff.

I'd like to sum it up in a single pithy phrase, but alas that is not to be. So look for a longer post on the subject sometime soon.

Probably when a few days have gone by and they still haven't taken down the tinsel menorahs.

Comments

[adiva_calandia]

I kept meaning to post about this -- there's a fence on campus that any student or student group can paint, if they want (campus tradition dictates that you can't start until midnight, though).

The campus Hillel painted it white with nine blue half-circles, and painted a new flame on it every night.

Coolest thing I've seen in a long while.

[batyatoon]

... oh that's awesome.

:D

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

I wish you light.

[batyatoon]

You too, my dear.

[agonistes]

It is entirely possible that similar things have been on my mind recently, though for different reasons.

You know I don't identify as Christian. I never have. My parents don't identify, either -- but we celebrate Christmas, for cultural reasons. (They were both raised Christian. For us-as-nuclear-family, it's about tradition.) So I'm okay with the muzak in the restrooms and in the hallways in my office building -- sometimes I even catch covers of carols that I like. (Jimmy Buffett's Christmas album = tops.) And they did something pretty neat with the door decorations, too. I think it's nice.

The company I work for employs a pretty broad spectrum of people, including five or six Muslims (that I know about, anyhow) -- the kind of thing you find out in break room conversation when you're gossiping about relatives' weddings and finding out why the grandmother of the groom refused to be involved, et cetera.

I can't help but wonder how they feel coming into the office every day. (Or hell, just living down here.) And I wish it were considered professional to ask.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to reading what you have to say.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I remember one year going to my mother's electrical menorah, which she loves -- no muss, no fuss, no candle wax -- plugging it in at sunset, turning on the next light, and then doing a double take and saying to myself, "It is shabbas. Hm. What is wrong with this picture?"

Mind, to the degree my folks are / were practicing, they're Reform, and tend more to the secular-but-tribally-Jewish. And, I'm at best secular-but-tribally Jewish.

[sodyera.livejournal.com]

Just enjoy the Generic Winter Holiday Season in your own way, and let the wave of the media wash over you. If you get too much on you, just wash it off or hand it to your Gentile friends, they'll appreciate the ecumenical cheer.

Personally, I look at the decorations as an embellishment of Yule, the celebration of Winter Solstice usurped by Christianity to increase church attendance. Then I look at Lucy Van Pelt's point of view and celebrate the Gift Getting Season!

And Kwanzaa... no.