What are you doing for Christmas or erev-Christmas? I get that question all the time from Jews, and until recently I never really thought about it. Should Jews celebrate Christmas? It doesn’t make much sense to me.
When I say should Jews celebrate Christmas, I mean it in terms of acknowledging its existence, and doing anything that could be considering using Christmas as some sort of holiday. To me it’s just another day that the banks and post offices are closed and a great day to ski because the slopes are always empty, but to many Jews, orthodox included, it becomes a holiday.
I am not sure if orthodox Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas, we never did and until recently I had never really heard of the minhag. But orthodox Jews do go to parties, Jew parties sure, but parties nevertheless and even though they are not actually celebrating Christmas it sure seems like they are. I wonder how many non-Jews show up to the Matzo Balls held around the country. I wonder if they think of it as the Jewish way to celebrate Christmas.
My father told me that many shuls will daven at a regular time if Christmas falls out on a weekday so as not to acknowledge that Christmas is a holiday. It’s kind of hard not to acknowledge, since you are off from work, but what if you could go into work? Or maybe move your car from one side of the street to other just to keep it like a regular day, should that be done? Or is Christmas really not such a big deal?
I am the opinion that Jews should not celebrate Christmas in any way shape or form.
What do you think?
Side point:My friends wife who is yeshivish thinks that modern orthodox people celebrate Christmas with the tree and everything