Last night, while my wife was at her book club, my kids and I visited some friends. On the way home, my 5 year old, Isabel, calls out “Dad?” from the backseat.
“Yes, Bel?”
“Did you know, um, that some people don’t even celebrate Christmas? They do Hannakuh.”
She had been learning this in school. “Yeah, Bel, that’s right.”
“And Dad?”
“Yeah, Bel.”
“Did you know that when people celebrate Hannakuh, that Santa just skips their houses?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they don’t have any Christmas tree or presents or anything, so he just doesn’t have to stop there.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. So aren’t you really glad that we chose Christmas instead of Hannakuh?”
(Tell me, parents–what do you say now? Here’s what I said.)
“Well, Bel, it’s not that we chose Christmas. It’s that we believe in Jesus. Christmas isn’t about Santa and presents; it’s about Jesus. We celebrate Christmas because we believe in Jesus.”
“Yeah, but Dad? What do people who celebrate Hannakuh believe in? Not God?”
“Well, they believe in God, too. But they don’t believe in the story of Jesus.”
“Oh. … But, Dad? If they believe in God, then that’s the same thing as believing in Jesus. So they really do believe in Jesus.”
(Ahem.)
“Well, Bel, no. There are lots of stories about God. Some of those stories, we share with people who believe in Hannakuh. The stories about Moses, Noah…you know all those?” (“Yeah, Dad.”) “They believe in those, too. But this story about Jesus, well, people who believe in Hannakuh believe Jesus was a good man, they believe that he happened, but they don’t believe he was God.”
“Oh.”
“You understand?”
“Yeah.”
A moment of silence.
“But Dad?”
“Yeah, Bel.”
“It’s a good thing Santa gets to skip the houses of people who celebrate Hannakuh. Because there’s no way he’d get to all the houses.”
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