Christmas

I want to add a little clarification on why I feel I should scale down our Christmas celebrations. Growing up in India as a part of majority community, having never felt a threat to your way of life, you start feeling a benevolent attitude towards other religions and traditions. You embrace them, even encourage them in all your secular glory which is what I did. Dynamics of being a minority culture are totally different, however. You are surrounded by Christmas, you can't escape it even if you don't celebrate it yourself. Your kids will be writing letters to Santa and wanting a tree, even if you never mention Christmas in your house. But Christmas is not a secular holiday like Halloween - there is a distinct religious aspect to it. When my kids got old enough to start asking about the birth of Christ and why we weren't going to the church to celebrate it I was at a loss. I am not religious, but I am still a Hindu. To this add the fact that your own holidays, that you took for granted are pretty much non-existent in your kids' minds and you have to go through huge effort to celebrate them, and you quickly realize that Diwali will lose out to Christmas in the US anyway, you do not need to aid in the process by celebrating Christmas.