fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2169 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2169 ⌋

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Dear Americans (or Westeners)...

Say there is a religious holiday that takes place in the same time-frame (or almost) as another religious holiday of a different religion. Do you celebrate both holidays is question? Do you conjugate new holiday words to describe it? Do you or your family visit the houses or families that celebrate the other relious holiday?

Signed,

South-East Asian.

Short answer no, long answer not really, at least not in Norway.

I am just all over this thread today! A lot of this was discussed in the Jews at Christmas thread/wank yesterday. Basically, it depends on the individual, although more conservative members of any given religion might side-eye someone for celebrating a holiday not their own.

Personally, I'm a Jew and I celebrate Chanukah, and I do not in any way celebrate Christmas (although I don't really side-eye people who do that much, I don't really care what other people do). If someone invites me over for a Christmas party, I'll totally go and have fun, but it's just as much someone else's thing as... IDK, going to someone's baby shower would be. In recent years, I've sometimes had a nice dinner on Christmas Day with my dad, but that's more a "I like to cook and we have the day off" thing. Or when he came to visit me in Japan last year, we celebrated a proper Chanukah and then did a Japanese-style Christmas for the lolz.

Depends on the holidays, but I know some people who combine Christmas and Hanukkah traditions if they come from a mixed background. If you watch on the OC, Seth calls it Chrismakkah, but it is very much an individual family basis and I've never seen it really take hold as a national thing.

From the U.S.: No, unless one has a connection to said different religion (or unless said religious holiday is Christmas, which has become commercialized and generalized to the point that it's practically secular). If one doesn't have friends, family, etc. that celebrate the other religious holiday, then it's considered kind of crass and disrespectful to celebrate it.

Well there's Chrismukkah (Christmas/Hanukkah)...but I think calling it that's kind of jokey and not widespread.

A lot of interfaith families do celebrate both, though; Jon Stewart (of the Daily Show, who's culturally Jewish) does a riff about how he and his Catholic wife try to get their kids involved in both holidays, but the kids are so much more interested in Christmas (with Santa etc) and Hanukkah can't really compete.

Honestly, who would want presents from some old house-invader over 8 days of presents, chocolate, money, and fried food?! I just don't get why kids are so into Santa!

Maybe it's the fact that you're allowed/expected to ask Santa for specific stuff and he's supposed to bring it? And the ~mystery of it showing up? The whole anticipation of the night before? IDK.

The one day of presents vs. eight days thing seemed like common sense to me as a (Catholic) kid, but all my Jewish friends led me to believe that they were relatively small gifts for the most part (maybe one big thing on some particular day). I'm Mexican raised in the US, so I also got stuff on Three Kings' Day, though.

The Christmas Equals Big Presents is a cultural thing, too, though. I never learned to be excited about Christmas because I always got "non-presents" like socks and underwear. Then when I was seven, I went to a Hannukah party and ate latkes and kugels and was like, "GOOD GOD THIS IS THE BEST HOLIDAY EVER WHY DOESN'T EVERYBODY DO THIS".

tl;dr If Santa's bringing you an xbox, yeah, nothing can compete. But if Santa's bringing you long underwear, eight days of tasty food and small legit gifts look absolutely amazing.

For religious holidays, people tend to only celebrate the ones associated with their religion. So, no Christians doing Ramadan, for instance. If you're close to someone of another religion, you might give them a token gesture to help them celebrate. Like giving a Muslim person a favorite treat after the fasting for Ramadan was finished, like a small Eid al-Fitr between friends.

In the US (I'm from the midwest), religion is usually seen as a "You stick to yours, I'll stick to mine" kind of thing, and holidays tend to follow suit. Giving out small, secular gifts like candy or decorations is pretty common.

It depends on the person/their circumstances? Some people only celebrate one or the other, some will attend celebrations for both, some will celebrate one, then do the other the next year - if they have a reason to. Usually they have some connection to the religions whose holidays they'd be celebrating. For example, someone might celebrate both Christmas and Hannukah if they were catholic/christian [or generally not associated with a religion], and someone they were close to was jewish - or vice versa.

However, if someone doesn't have a connection like that? Then they usually only celebrate one, if they decide to even do that.

tl;dr: No, not unless they're celebrating another one with a loved one of that religion.

Adding to the general responses with my personal anecdotes:

Jew (well, atheist, but raised Jewish and still do at least a token celebration for most of the holidays), from California by way of South Florida here. Of my own accord, I don't celebrate any of the non-Jewish holidays. But if friends have a Christmas party or something, I'll go and have fun. And I've got a bunch of friends coming over for a Channukah party I'm throwing on Friday, most of whom aren't Jewish. Or among my group of mostly atheist-but-raised-in-some-religion friends, there's a tendency to use joking names for a holiday party, like "Chrismahanukwanzaka" or stealing Sienfeld's "Agnostica".

Work events will typically just call it a "holiday" or "winter" party, to be inclusive.

However, if I were invited to an actual religious ceremony, like going to a church for Christmas Mass, I'd politely decline, unless there was some very personal reason to go. Something like a close friend's relative being memorialized or naming ceremony or something. (Do churches even do those at Mass?) Even then, I'd be reluctant. I feel horribly out of place and uncomfortable at religious ceremonies I have no personal connection to.

For Canada:

If you belong to one of the religions in question, you celebrate yours, and ignore the rest, unless you've got friends/family celebrating them, in which case, you get to enjoy more than one holiday.

If you do not belong to one of the religions in question, you can:

Ignore all of them, completely.
Celebrate which ever your friends and/or family are celebrating. (Could be one, could be all, depending just how cosmopolitan your circle is.)
If one of the big Christian ones are involved (Christmas or Easter), go ahead and celebrate the secularized version of that, since you'll have to work to avoid it anyway.

[ SECRET POST #2169 ]

Re: Stupid questions from non-natives (Part Seven)

Re: Stupid questions from non-natives (Part Seven)

Re: Stupid questions from non-natives (Part Seven)

Re: Stupid questions from non-natives (Part Seven)

Re: Stupid questions from non-natives (Part Seven)

Re: Stupid questions from non-natives (Part Seven)

Re: Stupid questions from non-natives (Part Seven)

Re: Stupid questions from non-natives (Part Seven)

Re: Stupid questions from non-natives (Part Seven)

Re: Stupid questions from non-natives (Part Seven)

Re: Stupid questions from non-natives (Part Seven)

Re: Stupid questions from non-natives (Part Seven)

Re: Stupid questions from non-natives (Part Seven)