Bringing Shabbat to Christmas

Last week in my Intro to Judaism class, Rabbi Gotlieb asked if we had any stories from the two weeks off we had from class.  I am usually not one that is biting at the bit to share personal experiences with a group of people I don’t know well, but this time I had to share.  My hand was raised before Rabbi Gotlieb was done asking if anyone had anything to share. 

                I wanted to share with my class that I had brought Shabbat to Christmas.  Christmas Eve was on a Friday night and Shabbat always begins on Friday night.  Joe and I committed to doing Shabbat dinner every Friday night.  This will take some planning since Joe usually works late, but we decided, whether or not Joe is present, our family will sanctify Friday night by observing Shabbat with a dinner.  Our first obstacle came a week later when my mother invited us over to her house to celebrate Christmas Eve on Friday, December 24^th. 

                At first I was concerned about how I would handle the situation.  I knew we had to go to my mother’s house.  Christmas and Thanksgiving were the holidays that my family always spent together.  But I wanted to make sure that I kept my commitment to having a Shabbat dinner.  I decided that I would ask my mother if we could celebrate Shabbat at her house.

                My mother was more than thrilled!  It was a beautiful coming together of old traditions and new traditions.  Next to the my mother’s beautifully decorated red and green table, was a circle table that held my Shabbat candles, my two loaves of homemade Challah bread, and pitcher of water for the traditional hand washing. 

                Before we sat down for Christmas Eve dinner, my family stood around the table prepared for Shabbat.  I lit the candles and recited the prayers in Hebrew.  I messed up once while reciting and decided not to sing “Shalom Aleichem,” but it was perfect.  (And my homemade Challah bread was talked about for the rest of the night!)

                One of the hardest parts about saying goodbye to Catholicism has been detaching from the excitement of Christmas.  My family did not have dinner nightly and we never took big family vacations because my parents worked a lot.  Christmas was really the only time I can remember my family always being together and truly being happy.  On Christmas I felt like I was a part of that classic and traditional family that ate dinner together and told jokes around the fireplace.

                Bringing my new traditions to my family and having them accept them so readily made saying goodbye to Christmas that much easier.  (Also, thank you to marthastewart.com for all the great Chanukah decorating ideas…if I couldn’t decorate for Christmas I had to decorate for Chanukah!)