DD obsessed with xmas

sunflower416

Sun, Jan 19 2020, 10:22 pm

There was a good thread about this a few years ago; hoping fellow moms can give me some updated pointers for my situation. I’m sure I’m not the only one in this boat.

It’s been over for almost a month now yet 4 y/o DD is still obsessed with Xmas. She goes to Jewish school but of course it’s still everywhere (Santa in the mall, Xmas kid’s books at the library, etc).
We are MO, with gentile friends and neighbors, and we are raising her to respect other traditions while staying proud of her own. Talking about the brave Maccabees not becoming like the Greeks helps a bit. But then she still says things like - and this is a direct quote - “I wish I was xtian so I could have Santa Claus” (aaaah!). I don’t want to blow things up too big as she’s only 4 and doesn’t really understand when she says things like this but wow does it upset me.
One more twist. It’s not working to say “they do that and we do this” because: DH’s best friend is intermarried, and his half-Jewish kid is one of my daughter’s good friends. So DD just replies “my friend has Xmas AND Hanukkah, I want to be like him.” 🤦‍♀️ I don’t think saying “intermarriage is a modern tragedy for our people” would be wise given the circumstances.
So, any advice on how best to approach this?

sunflower416

Sun, Jan 19 2020, 10:37 pm

amother [ Olive ] wrote:

Does she watch Peppa Pig? Watch TV in general? I find that the children's programs make Xmas very appealing to the kids. A little bit if chabad kids videos might re-indoctrinate her.

LOL! You got it. Makes me a little envious of families who are more frum and banish the TV. This is definitely part of it. She’s talking (sadly) about how all the pups from paw patrol are xtian since they celebrate xmas.

Thanks for the Chabad kids DVD idea, I will go find some to put into the mix.

amother

Olive

Sun, Jan 19 2020, 10:56 pm

sunflower416 wrote:

I had banished YouTube on my phone ... Then .... It was a moment of desperation and weakness and let them watch on my laptop or phone. and shortly after my kids were chasidim of the Klaus rebbe (we belong to a very right wing community but we are BT and have a sense of humor about where we are at in life)

After a few days of weaning them off YouTube and putting on middos machine, rabbi chanina puppet show, etc. Go to chabad kids .com and look up videos and audio stories. Just a heavy diet of Jewish video consumption and I had my sweet yiddishe kinderlach back.

"Chex mix is not for Jewish people Imma" they even stopped saying Xmas! And started calling it Chex mix. Bless them.

Soon by you!

ETA: if you walk away from the phone while they're watching inevitably Xmas videos will come on and you won't realize.

asmileaday

Sun, Jan 19 2020, 11:02 pm

amother [ Olive ] wrote:

So cute!!! Thanks for the humor!

(I also think the whole sitting on Santa's lap thing is creepy.)

malki2

Mon, Jan 20 2020, 1:26 am

WADR, and I obviously don’t know you, but I do feel that your DD is obsessed with Xmas because you do not give her enough positive feelings about Chanuka and the other holidays and aspects of Yiddishkeit. I don’t think that this is a problem among Chasidim, for example, not because they don’t expose their kids to Xmas, but mainly because there is such a focus on making Yiddishkeit real and enjoyable and the main focus of their lives, that the kids have no desire to go anywhere. I feel very strongly, for example, that the kids who are using their cell phones on Shabbos are doing so because they were never introduced by their parents to the real sweetness of Shabbos. I am not trying by this to incriminate any sector of Judaism, but I’m just trying to answer your question. Shabbos, Yom Tov, and Mitzvos and the true enjoyment of them really have to be made into a main focus of your lives. Only them will your DD not care about Xmas and Santa Claus.

amother

Slategray

Mon, Jan 20 2020, 1:45 am

malki2 wrote:

This is very unfair and insensitive to OP.

shabbatiscoming

Mon, Jan 20 2020, 2:12 am

malki2 wrote:

Wow, I think you are completely off the mark malki2.
Just because a kid might be obsessed with something does not mean they have a lack of their own chagim and what they mean.
That is completely unfair to say (and I dont even know the OP)
Why do you think the OP isnt also making the chagim real and enjoyable?

You are way off base here.

I live in Israel. The chagim are ALL around. My daughter read a book when she was younger, that had something about x-mas. She had never heard of that holiday and asked what it was. There after, for quite a while, she wanted to read (and watch) everything having to do with x-mas. It was no big deal. So she read stories that had x-mas in it and we watched some shows/movies with x-mas in them.
But that does not mean, for a second, that she doesnt also love shabbat, purim, chanukah etc.

Please dont read into someone's post, something that is not there.

DrMom

Mon, Jan 20 2020, 2:22 am

Ambiguity doesn't go over well with 4-year-olds. I think you need to make it very clear that x-mas is not a Jewish holiday, and that's why we don't celebrate it.

We have many unique and interesting holidays of our own that Christians do not have. We believe X; for whatever reasons, Christian believe Y. We do not agree with them, but we aren't rude to them; if your friend is Christian, we don't make it a point to tell her that we think this is all nonsense because we don't want to hurt her feelings.

Just like a cheeseburger might look tempting, we don't eat it because HaShem said that Jews aren't supposed to. (But we have other awesome things to eat -- we re certainly not lacking in food!)

amother

Maroon

Mon, Jan 20 2020, 2:50 am

malki2 wrote:

Perhaps they have no desire to go anywhere because they were not raised by parents who share OP's sensitivity and inclusivity when it comes to other religions. If you've been told all your life that x-tians are evil, you naturally wouldn't want to celebrate x-mas.

FranticFrummie

Mon, Jan 20 2020, 4:26 am

I'm a BT, so I can understand OP's daughter somewhat.

Lights are pretty. Music is fun. Presents are awesome! If you make a really big deal about decorating your Sukkah, that will go a long way towards filling that need.

You can empathize, and tell her that yes, decorated trees look nice. Menorahs look nice too. As for Santa, DD learned very early on the Santa was not real, but that it would not be nice to tell that to her non Jewish BFF - let her figure that out on her own. I never let DD go to BFF's house to the tree decorating party, but she was welcome to go over any other day and admire the tree.

After xmas all the sales are going on, so you can shop with your DD for future Sukkah decorations and get all excited about how pretty it's going to look.

If Santa is still having kids on his lap on January 20th, that's super weird. Confused

If your child must watch secular shows, Arthur and Rugrats have Jewish characters, and they even talk about how they feel left out and different sometimes. [I]

malki2

Mon, Jan 20 2020, 5:28 am

amother [ Slategray ] wrote:

This is very unfair and insensitive to OP.

Wow you guys finally answered my question! I was never sure if the hearts icons meant loves or tomatoes. I now know with certainty that it means tomatoes! Sorry guys. My answer stays. You can send more hearts. I tried being gentle with my answer, but the truth is that I’ve been in both worlds and I know what I am talking about. A large percentage of MO needs to do a better job engendering within their children a love for Judaism, Mitzvot, Shabbat, and Yamim Tovim. And until you’ve been in both worlds, it’s hard to understand what I mean. But I strongly believe it to be true. And you don’t have to like my answer, but the OP has a problem and was asking for help. This is my personal diagnosis.

malki2

Mon, Jan 20 2020, 5:49 am

amother [ Maroon ] wrote:

I’ll answer that question. First of all, I said before that it’s not about telling your kids that xtians are evil. But regarding what you said, it happens to be that the Steipler Gaon wrote in a letter that children only understand concepts in black and white. They don’t understand nuanced shades of grey which may be the full truth sometimes. So while I’m not advocating throwing eggs at the neighbor’s house, I am saying that if you teach young children to “respect” other religions, you WILL get kids who want to know why they can’t have a tree if the other religion is just as good as ours. I understand that you live among Gentiles so you will probably have to walk a fine line, but nevertheless it needs to be done with a great deal of seichel. When they get a little older, you can teach them more about the other religions and they will understand it better.

BadTichelDay

Mon, Jan 20 2020, 5:52 am

My kids come across xmas in youtube videos. From day one I've made a funny kind exagerated fuss about it, yelling loudly "Aaaargh!! Kratzmach alert!! Switch it off, quicklyyyyy! Who can switch it off fast?!" - My kids have taken to copying me and now practice self censorship whenever it turns up. They do a lot of yelling and then switch to a different video. Sometimes it's a false alert, when innocent snow appears in a video. As an explanation I have told them that the red suit guy is actually a nasty person in disguise and that kratzmach is not our chag but belongs to foreign people (we live in Israel, which makes it easier.) So far it seems to work. And we do put a lot of effort into sukkot and give them chanukkah gifts. It sometimes turns up in books which I read to them - then I censor it into chanukkah while reading. I also censor treif food while reading. Of course once they learn to read English (so far they only learn reading Hebrew), they'll find out, but by then I hope they're old enough.

DrMom

Mon, Jan 20 2020, 6:03 am

BadTichelDay wrote:

That's an odd thing to say. Why?

We can tell our children that these other religions are false (we say it explicitly in Aleinu) without distorting their mythologies. What's going to happen when she grows up and learn that in Christian tradition (in the US a least*), Santa is a nice jolly guy who gives kids presents. Then she'll wonder, "Hmmm... I wonder what else Ima lied to me about?"

*Off-topic, but Santa has a different appearance and different legends in other parts of the Christian world. Check out this hilarious story by David Sedaris about Santa legends in the Netherlands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?.....;t=1s