Is that so different from what Christian kids watch? Are there more explicitly religious Christmas specials aimed at kids that are shown every year on network TV?

I think the point was more that the Jewish kids weren't watching Frosty and Rudolph and stuff like that as much as the Christmas-celebrating kids were. I have no actual figures to bear this out, but I do know that my parents tended to try to kind of limit the Christmas deluge, so they'd try to not let us watch every single Christmas thing on TV. Not so much a particular objection to Rudolph, more just, "We'll let the kids watch some of these, but we'll turn it off when we've had enough Christmas." But Charlie Brown Christmas was something we looked forward to and made a point of watching, and the Grinch was one that we usually saw. A bunch of my friends said similar things. But I have no idea whether this holds true for anyone outside my group of friends and that Slate writer's group of friends. (And the writer's group also watched "The Year Without a Santa Claus," which I hadn't seen until last year and doesn't fit into my theory, so I'm conveniently ignoring it.)

It will probably be at least a week.

The Girl does secular-cultural Judaism, with holidays and even occasional fasting but no G-d. I found it difficult to relate to at first, being of the practising (Christian) persuasion, but if nothing else there's been five years of lots of holidays and great theological debates. If children every came along*, it would get more complicated. But I think we could make the cross-cultural thing work.

*hah - like they'd appear as if by magic.

*hah - like they'd appear as if by magic.

You never know - you could get drunk one night and wake up the next morning with a turkey baster next to the bed....

I hope you realise that's the stuff of actual nightmares.

Semi-practicing pagan that I am, the only part of Charlie Brown Christmas that I make a point of watching is Linus' telling of the Christmas story.

The Snoopy Dance is worth a look-in, too.

My best friend in grade school's parents were an atheist mixed-marriage(Mom Jewish...I'm still not sure what background her dad was fleeing, but...) Anything "weird" they would do we thought was a "New York thing" Which it is...it's funny, her mom never wanted to talk about being Jewish, but she still sort of made Valerie Harper look like the mom in Ordinary People while saying stuff like "I don't tell people I'm from New York because they think New Yorkers are obnoxious." She's hilarious, but there are more than a few issues in that subscription.

My wife is methodist and I'm atheist. I really haven't given the kids my perspective on things though I don't tell them I believe things I don't if they ask (which they really haven't). They've been exposed to the methodist side through church, wife, and in-laws. Right now my son bounces around on religious issues, it's hard to pin down his thoughts on it. My daughter has gone straight-up atheist. Interestingly, she and I are the ones who've read the Bible straight through. (Well, I listened via an audiobook of the NIV).

Of course, the easy way to raise secular Jewish kids is to do it like DH and I were brought up - Reform, but really really half-assed about it. But ultimately I think that does a disservice both to Secular Humanism and Reform Judaism.

Of course, the easy way to raise secular Jewish kids is to do it like DH and I were brought up - Reform, but really really half-assed about it.

I think that's the default of a lot of Jewish kids of a certain age/generation. That's how Lewis was brought up (and he just turned 40), although ironically enough, he's the only one out of he, his brother, and his sister, who had a bar/bat mitzvah. He said he wanted to learn about it and do something that his older siblings hadn't done. Of course, having done so, he also feels perfectly comfortable saying, "I have no interest in practicing-- I gave it a go and it's not for me."