Explaining Christmas

My family raised me in a non-religious household, despite a Jewish AND somewhat Christian lineage. So we celebrated numerous holidays along with the rest of America, learning a bit here and there about the traditions that started them. And then I went to a private, Catholic high school where I got the bejezzus scared out of me the first time my peers collectively bellowed the appropriate chants during mass. What was this whole religion thing and am I missing out on anything?

Since then I have taken some classes about different world religions, attended synagogue, other churches, meditations and done some more readings. While I have deduced that an organized religion does not align with my beliefs, we have created a spiritual household where we pray before we eat, try to meditate, and regularly give thanks for the blessings we have received. Yet we still celebrate some of the religious traditions adopted by Americans, such as Easter, Hanukkah, and especially Christmas.

Now that Cali is 22 months and very aware of her surroundings, we are now finding ourselves explaining these traditions. I dig deep into the cobwebs of my memory to extract some story I can relate to her about about the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, the three wise men and some myrrh. I then find myself adding a little bit more that I've lovingly picked up during my bout at UC Santa Cruz about how Christians traditionally celebrate Christmas, but that American companies have capitalized on the holiday and now people find themselves exploiting the spirit of giving they search for sales at big box stores like WalMart (that not only exploit the American worker with the highest percentage of worker suits than any other company, as well as lead to the demise of many small towns) and giving something that has no real thought or meaning to loved ones that has been made by children in China versus handmade by local artisans. Cali looks at me with a wrinkled brow and repeats my last phrase of "made by China." Sweet. Glad that is what stuck.

It's just who I am; I can't tell her just the standard American explanation of these happenings. I feel like I am not telling her the whole truth. So Cali is getting the regular description along with the DVD version of "the makings of." And so the Santa Claus figure has two explanations. 1.), because he freaked her out since she was scared by our postal worker who has white hair, a white beard, and only one eye and 2.), so she learns what the other kids learn about Santa. Telling her he is not real, but is a make-believe character to help us think about the spirit of giving helped mellow her apprehension of some white-haired, jolly man coming into the house unannounced. Further explaining that the postal worker with one eye is just a nice man who had an accident is NOT Santa also helped calm her. And once we went to our first Christmas party of the year where she received many presents, the whole "Santa brings presents and he is good" thing really stuck. Now she is waiting for the 25th day of December for Santa to come bring presents to good girls.

It's fun playing along, yet weird deciding what to say. And so I have embarked on this journey explaining what I know to my daughter in the most gentle, truthful, and playful way I can. (Though it does leave me dreading the talk about "did you ever drink at parties, Mom?")