by Robin Friedman

December 25, 2008

For our non-Jewish friends and neighbors, this is traditionally the most wonderful time of the year.

As a longtime admirer of the beauty of Christmas — as well as a closet caroler — I’ve always merrily sung along when the airwaves fill with their yearly yield of yuletide chorals.

I know the “December dilemma” can be an annual source of frustration for many Jews, but for me, it’s never been that way.

When my husband and I vacationed in our nation’s capital a few years ago, we requested a tour of the White House with the specific intention of seeing its Christmas decorations. And when I worked at a weekly newspaper in Bethlehem, Pa. — the only Jew in its tiny news bureau — I gladly participated in our office’s Secret Santa gift exchange. I reveled in the small namesake town where Christmas comes to tinsel-like life every year, with tunes piped over speakers on wreath-swathed lampposts, horse-drawn carriages jingling with bells, and more colored lights than Broadway.

But this year I’m noticing an unmistakably bittersweet pitch. The music has a tinge of tragedy to its melodies — as if a Greek chorus has suddenly snuck backup hymns behind the harmonies.

The beat of the little drummer boy this season seems to be a steady rhythm of layoffs, foreclosures, bailouts, and bankruptcies, and December doesn’t feel at all like it’s bringing tidings of comfort and joy.

Many who celebrate Christmas, and even those who don’t, have lamented over the years the surrender of this holy day to malls and sales — the loss of a genuinely religious holiday to a secular one that celebrates commercialism.

The supreme irony of this December, of course, is the fear that consumers will spend too little — with the survival or death of retailers hanging in the balance.

But there is a silver lining, I believe, to all the dark, gloomy clouds surrounding the season, and further beyond, to the prospect of a long and bleak winter.

And I, in my outsidery Judaic way, need a little Christmas.

I need for my non-Jewish friends and neighbors to hang on to the season, not just its music and its mood, but its optimistic teachings of brotherhood, peace on Earth, and goodwill to men and women.

I need for all of us to be more generous than we think we can afford to be, so that those suffering most in this recession can share a little light.

And while I have never celebrated Christmas, I have felt its beauty, and hope my fellow citizens do as well.

Surely if ever there was a time to come together, to unite in the spirit of the season, it is now, as all of us face unparalleled, shared challenges, as we all search for ways to light our way out of the darkness.

Robin Friedman is the special projects editor at New Jersey Jewish News and the author, most recently, of the young-adult novel Nothing (Flux).

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