From: kgatling@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Keith E Gatling)
Subject: Re: Celebrating Xmas and Hannakuh
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 92 17:58:45 EST

Lynn, you wrote a lot of excellent stuff about the Zorkfest, and from some
of your Christian references, I just have to ask if there's an Episcopalian
in your life somewhere (Whitsunday is such a denomination specific reference
that I had to ask).

As far as the commericalization of Christmas goes, this has been a theme for
quite some time, but if you really go back far enough, you'll find that
there was already a holiday in the Roman Empire around the Winter Solstice
that included gift giving and general merry making as part of it...the
Saturnalia...and we Christians just sort of tacked our celebration onto it
as a way of not being conspicuous for *not* celebrating when everyone else
was.  So if you really want to get picky (and I don't really) one could
argue that it's not Christmas that's become commericalized, but a
commericial celebration that's become Christianized.

The problems with friends of mixed cultures and religions is one of the
reasons I really wish we would do something like what's done in Japan.  From
what I've read (and my sources may be wrong), the big occasion for gift
giving is New Year's (of course, in the spirit of overdoing things, this is
also the big occassion for scouring the garbage to find stuff that's
perfectly usable, but a few years old, that was replaced with a better model
during the gift giving).  Boy would that make things a lot easier!  First of
all, you wouldn't be tripping over anyone's religious holiday and
trivializing it (are there any people out there for whom New Year's is a
religious holiday?), second, it's a holiday that just about everyone (with
the exception of a few people in religions that don't celebrate Christmas or
Chanukah anyway) celebrates, third, it would allow those of us who celebrate
Chanukah and Christmas to celebrate them as religious holidays and not as
major gift giving days where we get to watch the kids plow through presents
like Sherman through Atlanta, totally at odds with the spirits of both
holidays.

Ah...but the chances of seeing this done are slim to none.  The idea of
Christmas as a time for giving and getting presents are too well ingrained
in our society, and New Year's is pretty much still seen as the time to go
out to parties.  On the other hand, it did take quite a number of years for
the idea of giving small presents on Christmas to escalate into the Toys R
Us bonanza, so maybe if a few of us start now, we can change things for the
future.

Since you did mention the Zorkfest happening in late Spring, I have to ask
this question of other members of the newsgroup.  Of those of you who do
Santa and the whole bit, how many of you also give presents for Easter and
do the Easter Bunny routine?  I seem to recall that while we intended to
give presents for Christmas and Santa was negotiable, we both agreed that we
were not going to turn Easter into sort of the K-Mart Christmas that I
remembered as a kid, and that one religious holiday turned into a gift
giving celebration was definitely enough.

Well I've gone on long enough here, and who knows...there might be other
posts for me to add my 2c to, so I'll call it quits here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Keith E Gatling                                  kgatling@mailbox.syr.edu *
*          Opinions?  I've got plenty of them.  Just ask my wife!           *
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Newsgroups: misc.kids