[HPI news: Christmas, Hanukkah and Pancha Ganapati together in a Oprah.com article about how to accommodate different traditions in a December 25 family reunion. The advice given in the article may not be particularly insightful, but the fact that Lord Ganesha’s December festival is mentioned in the headline is another sign of Hinduism’s new place in America.]
USA, December 10, 2011 (Oprah.com): Last year, some married friends of mine, one Jewish and one Christian, got into a huge smackdown over a poinsettia a guest had brought to their Jewish party. (Poinsettia is a a small Mexican shrub with large showy scarlet bracts surrounding the small yellow flowers, popular as a houseplant at Christmas.) He wanted to display it. She did not. While they carried on–loudly–I got nervous and uncomfortable and ate all the cookies.
Back in the days of limited tolerance, this was the traditional interfaith family blowout: Hanukkah dukes it out with Christmas. Now we all know better. There are a lot more religions and a lot more people in the world–like Hindus, who celebrate Pancha Ganapati in December, which requires a living room shrine. Add to that atheists.
Teri Apter, PhD, author of “What Do You Want from Me? Learning to Get Along with In-Laws,” offers some advice. You may have to find a more radical way to accommodate everybody, such as celebrating one religious event in your house and the other at a restaurant or an in-law’s house. You might be able to find a compromise in the home, such as no Christmas decorations during the Hanukkah festivities. The key is creating your own family customs that everybody feels comfortable with–even if they deviate from the so-called norm.