losing my religion

The year I was 16 I decided as a result of my evolving attitude towards religion that I would no longer kneel in church in subservience to god. Since we had stopped going to church on Sunday as a family, a result of the social disaster they suffered, and Christmas Eve being the only time we still went, I warned my mother beforehand and, as it turned out, we were late getting there and the only open seats were on the last row in the balcony. Soon after we slipped in and the congregation kneeled and I remained seated my mother made us all get up and leave because I had mortified her, she said, sitting quietly in the last row of the balcony behind everyone well, there was that bit about her trying to force me down by pulling on my arm and me resisting and that was the last time we went to church as a family.

The SDE (social disaster event) changed everything in my family, it was broken and while our parents never divorced, the dynamic was never put back together. My father became angry all the time, my mother depressed and slept all the time, I was not allowed to be friends with anyone unless they were in the right social strata, they became obsessed with maintaining or regaining a certain image but never recovered a large social group. As it affected Christmas dinner, Mother became maudlin and would clamp down on any spirited conversation or disagreement because she wouldn't have 'yelling' on Christmas Eve. Apparently we were just supposed to be all fake gooey lovey dovey.

Us three kids grew up, went to college, got married, had kids of our own. By the time I divorced and remarried, I had rejected Christian theology completely and having married a Jew, decided to raise our kids Jewish so that was the end of any Christmas accouterments. At least in our home. We did Hanukah instead with minimal decorating. We still attended Christmas Eve dinner, now at my sister's house when she took over the ritual as the oldest daughter (and it became a much more relaxed and fun evening), and Christmas morning at my parent's, our children in tow. Eventually the whole family scattered, my brother when he left for college and then to many points ever farther away, the parents to a small community more than an hour away, my sister to Colorado and then to Arizona and her grown daughters as well which left my parents with me and my Jewish family and that was the end of any kind of Christmas Eve family dinner though it did enjoy a brief revival when my sister and then one of her adult daughters moved back to the area. I was in my 40s I guess when the inevitable year arrived and I finally spent a quiet Christmas Eve at home and not with some part of my natal family. That first time was kind of weird.

I had moved away from Jewish theology and really all religion by then and so once the kids were older teens and I felt no pressure to compete with Christmas there was no decorating with casual celebration to minimal gift giving which gave way to a revival when my daughter had her young family who are now all but grown and so once again like a wave cresting and breaking we are back in the trough to minimal recognition, usually a gift of cash to each of the grandkids at some point during the holiday season.

So yeah, I don't do Hanukah either. I think if I was going to celebrate this season it would be for the original reason the celebration exists...the return of the sun and of light and warmth and all growing things without all the dogma. The procession of the planet around the sun is magical enough, the solstice like a release of held breath and then the next breath in.