I realized as I took a photo of my ornament (thanks Heidi!) from the ornament exchange via Where the Bleep is My Stork??!! that my menorah was still up. Yep, I enjoy spinning the dreidel and watching the candlelight grow nightly. No, I'm not Jewish. I don't even know that I'm Christian. I'm a hodgepodge of spiritual ideas, aka Unitarian Universalist, sometimes Lutheran, sometimes pagan-oriented. A recent FB status I saw (Patti Poe-King?) talked about the "controversy" of saying Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas and how we are afraid to offend others but is anyone really offended? Is this a controversy that doesn't even really exist? Much ado about nothing? I agree with her, I've never had anyone react badly when I've wished them a Merry Christmas.
Many religions have ancient stories that tell the story of a god reborn to great rejoicing: the Egyptian sun god, the pagan horned god corresponding to the winter solstice, the Christian Jesus. Most scholars of Christianity will agree that Jesus was not born on December 25th and he's not really "the reason for the season". The Jewish tradition of Hanukkah has some basis in the miracle of oil that lasted in the temple for 8 nights when only 1 night's oil was had. Again, it's a story of lights brightening our dark winter. Even Santa Claus is a story that involves a miracle man. The point is, there's room for us all. It's a season for celebrating the sheer magic that we all exist.
