Happy Gobble Gobble Day!

Keith’s surprise about the way I celebrated Thanksgiving: incorporating religion into it. My surprise about they way he celebrated it: no pumpkin pie.

For our second Thanksgiving as a married couple, we spent the day at my parent’s house in Maryland eating, taking a walk outside, visiting my grandmother in Baltimore, and watching football. Although this is a secular holiday, Keith’s family and my family still celebrate it fairly differently. For instance:

Meal start time: Keith’s family—6 p.m. My family—2 p.m. I personally think 6 p.m. makes more sense!

Food: Both serve turkey and mashed potatoes, but Keith’s family serves soup as a starter and doesn’t serve pumpkin pie. (And they serve brisket in addition to the turkey.) Overall, I think their meal is lighter than my family’s. What surprised me the most last year is that they don’t serve pumpkin pie! I wrongly assumed that it’s a Thanksgiving staple just as much as turkey. Also, they don’t serve green bean casserole, which I changed last year when I went up there. I baked the casserole from scratch, since my brother-in-law and sister-in-law are strictly kosher and I could not use store-bought mushroom soup (kosher laws nix mixing meat and dairy). I made a cream of mushroom soup using soy milk instead of real milk, which was okay, but a bit runny. My goal is to perfect it next year.

Wine: Keith’s family—yes. My family—we each had one glass of prosecco, which was new. I personally think that family gatherings are usually better with alcohol.

Football: Yes to both. In fact, my dad loves when Keith comes over so they can talk about the Jets, Redskins, and Ravens, since my sister and I are only half-hearted football fans. I like that they can bond over that.

Prayer or blessing before meal: Keith’s family—no. My family—yes. Keith says that religion was never a part of Thanksgiving for his family growing up. When we’re at my parent’s house, my dad always leads us in a traditional pre-meal Catholic blessing, followed by a free-form prayer that includes things that he is thankful for. Keith said that was one thing that surprised him about our Thanksgiving dinner–the fact that we incorporated religion into it. To me, it was always understood that thanking God went hand-in-hand with Thanksgiving.

That’s about it for now, since my food coma is setting in. As my nephew said to me earlier today, “Happy Gobble Gobble Day”!

Halloween—Religious Holiday or Just a Retailer’s Dream?

I love Halloween, even though it’s a really weird holiday. I recently met someone from Colombia (the country, not to be confused with the D.C./Baltimore suburb known for its storybook street names and house clones.) who said that they celebrate Halloween there, but the difference is that Americans take the whole dressing up thing here a bit too far.

Photo courtesy of Terry Tyson

Similar to many American kids, I grew up excited to carve pumpkins, dress up as a princess or Minnie Mouse each year, march in a parade at my elementary school, and try and get as much candy as I could from our neighbors. My parents always hung up decorations, but more fall-themed than the scary kind. As religious Christians, they weren’t too crazy about the devils, goblins, and witches part of the holiday.

Although Keith celebrated Halloween at school and went trick-or-treating, I was surprised to hear that his Hebrew school discouraged students to celebrate Halloween because of what he remembers as “a combination of reasons, including paganism and the fact that so many Jews were killed on Halloween.” Also, his parents never decorated for Halloween, though they do hand out candy. (However, the not decorating may have nothing to do with being Jewish.)

From my limited knowledge about the history of Halloween, I knew that it had some sort of tie to All Saint’s Day and pagan traditions, but I had never heard anything about Jews being persecuted or killed during Halloween. After some Googling I couldn’t find anything about Jews being persecuted or killed during All Hallows Eve or All Saints Day, but I learned that Leviticus 18:3 says not to copy non-Jewish customs or participate in holidays that are deemed religious in nature.

I never really thought about Halloween as a religious holiday, at least how we celebrate it nowadays in the U.S. Halloween is just one of those many examples of things that I never thought we would have different upbringings about, but we did. I’m just glad Keith is okay with celebrating it, and will be willing to go trick-or-treating with our kids someday, because to me, that was always my favorite memory of the holiday.

Sukkot and the September Dilemma

Jen

Interfaith couples sometimes talk about the “December dilemma”; the challenges of celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah so close together. I personally think that there is more of a “September dilemma.” September (and the beginning of October) is a whirlwind of Jewish holidays, including the High Holy Days that fall just 10 days apart–two days of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year) and then one day of Yom Kippur (the day of atonement). Then, there’s the week-long holiday Sukkot (the festival of booths) and Simchat Torah. That’s a lot of holidays in just a few weeks!

As someone who loves eating and drinking al fresco with friends and family, Sukkot is one of my favorite holidays. I really enjoy Rosh Hashanah as well–my husband and I always go to visit my in-laws in the New York area, attend synagogue, visit with his large network of family friends, and eat our weight in sweets and bagels and lox.

Our sukkah (that we had NO part in building). I promise we usually take better photos than this, but it was difficult to use a timer on a phone camera.

In my opinion, Yom Kippur is probably the most difficult holiday for a non-Jew to observe. It is somber, repetitious, and there’s a lot of talk about life, death, and sin. Enough talk, in fact, for at least a dozen church services. The fasting is another challenging thing about the holiday. Although non-Jews are not expected to fast, I do for half the day out of respect for my husband and his family. I feel almost bad for my husband (who fasts the full 25 hours), but he says he’s used to it by now. It took me a few years to really appreciate this holiday, and each year I find more and more meaning in it. This year, I really took it as a reflection period as to how I can treat my family and friends better and just overall be a better, more giving person. I even thought about how I should write this blog.

Back to Sukkot, my favorite Jewish holiday. I love the idea of celebrating this with family and friends under a sukkah. Every year my husband and I try to find a sukkah to eat dinner in, even when we were in Paris last year for our honeymoon. (We eventually stumbled upon an Orthodox synagogue that was celebrating Sukkot, and our experience going there is another story in itself.)

This year, we were lucky enough to celebrate in a sukkah outside our apartment building. We brought some enchiladas (not very Jewish) and wine out to the sukkah and enjoyed the unseasonably warm and humid weather as we talked about our future plans for building a sukkah when we one day have a house.

That’s one thing I like about the Jewish holidays; the focus on slowing down and enjoying friends and family. I personally find it a nice change of pace from my husband’s and my usual evenings eating our dinners in front of the latest episode of Homeland. That’s one reason we try to do a Shabbat dinner every few weeks as well. More on that later, though. Happy Simchat Torah!