How to Combine and Make Interfaith Holidays Fun
Posted: Wednesday, March 29, 2006
by Iris Taub
I have been blessed with having my Grandchilden being raised in an Interfaith atmosphere. They may not be religious but they are learning about their heritage and also we try to combine holidays and make them fun.
I have written several articles about how I feel that our children have learned to respect all religions and not judge someone by their color, religion or language. I am glad that they look at individuals as people and judge them by their behavior.
If we could all be tolerant of one another, maybe we would not have to worry about war, and more importantly prejudice. Old habits die hard and our children are our future and if we do not break the chain they will grow up with the same fears and opinions that we have. They say knowledge brings power but how do we accomplish this task if we are not open minded and try to understand and respect others that are different than we are?
I guess you can say it all started when my own children were very young and we lived in an Interfaith neighborhood. We had neighbors who celebrated Christmas and Easter and we celebrated Hanukkah and Passover.
For Christmas our children were invited over for parties and one year I invited our neighbors and friends and made a Hanukkah party to show them how we cebrated our holiday.
During Easter and most of the time, Passover is around the same time of the year, our friends would be dressed up and go to church to celebrate the holiday. We also dressed up and had a seder but instead of the traditional seder plate with just hard boiled eggs, I decided it would be more festive to color the hard boiled eggs and put them on the plate instead. The children really loved to help me prepare that way and that is how I would explain what the seder plate symbolized, with all the other ingredients added as well.
I also found it to be very helpful to have a child friendly seder and was lucky enough to have a dear friend who purchased a series of Holiday books made especially for children. These books described each holiday with stories but also were told in a way a child could understand what the holidays represented without too much detail but enough information that they could relate to each specific holiday. That way even though the seder was short, our children understood what the holiday represented and as they got older would particpate in the reading of the actual Haggadah(The story of Passover).
I also felt that even though we were not Christian, that it would be fun to particpate in Easter Egg Hunts since it really did not have any religious undertones. It was a great way for the kids to have fun and now that we have grandchildren, we enjoy watching them particpate in Easter Hunts as well.
Although it is important to learn about the religious aspects of each holiday, it is also important to learn to interact with others and I am thrilled that we have this opportunity to share in an Easter Hunt, meet the Easter Bunny, eat chocolate and other goodies during this time of year.
We also look forward to sitting on Santa's lap and decorating what we call our holiday tree that has both Star of Davids as well as little stockings with each member of the family on it hanging from that tree, and other little ornaments, playing with Draydels, eating chocolate gelt(money) and other holiday candies.
Our family has tried to make each holiday the best of all worlds and hope I hope that our grandchildren will continue a healthy cycle of caring for someone because they are kind, and loving and not let anyone influence them in a negative way.
Enjoy the holidays!
Iris S. Taub
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