Another Weird Christmas

But that’s the way I like it

The Grace Church combined choirs (Youth and Adult), Members of Collegium Ancora, a few guest singers, and local orchestral musicians performing portions of G.F. Handel’s Messiah oratorio at Grace Church in Providence, December 22, 2019. I’m there somewhere. Photo by Serina O’Connell

Ever since I returned to Christ and started attending church regularly Christmas has been a little weird. Nobody in my immediate family celebrates it except people who live rather far away. My wife is Jewish and quite observant (except in that she married me, I often joke) and we brought our daughter up Jewish. When she was a child I was mostly an atheist although still somewhat of a Wiccan. When I met my wife she was Wiccan also. That’s how we met — at the Covenant of the Goddess (COG) grand council meeting and festival. We were both there for the festival aspect of it, neither of us being very interested in the organizational aspects of COG.

Fast forward to our marriage by Wiccan friends who were licensed to perform marriages in the state of New York. When our daughter came along my wife became active in the local Conservative temple and started keeping the house kosher. This caused me some consternation at first because I like cheeseburgers. For her sake though I sucked it up. In spite of my atheism I had no problem with our daughter being raised Jewish because I have always respected — and continue to respect — the way Judaism values learning, science, and scholarship. Our daughter stayed with it up through her bat mitzvah — a moving occasion during which I cried — but as soon as that was complete she never went to services…