Dear Editor,
The enclosed Calvin and Hobbes cartoon comments succinctly on a suggestion I have heard made several times lately: since it falls so late in November when Christians are about to celebrate Christmas, and Jews are about to celebrate Hanukkah, that on the birthday of Guru Nanak, Sikhs should consider giving their children gifts. Whatever spiritual significance Christmas originally had when it was only a special Mass on the Roman Catholic calendar began to be obscured when missionaries to the British Isles and Europe began to allow pagan winter solstice practices of Druids and the Germanic Yule to be absorbed into the celebration of Christmas. Now Christian chill can be hardly expected to associate this day with anything but what they are going to get on Christmas morning, with decorated evergreen trees, and with Frosty the Snowman. They are only children; they cannot be expected to wade through all the commercialism, sentimentalism, and acquisitiveness it now represents in order to grasp any spiritual significance.
Before the tum of the century and the massive migration of Jews from Eastern Europe to the U.S., Hanukkah was what it is still called on Jewish calendars a minor festival. Children were given ruts and raisins and played with 4sided tops whose inscription referred to the religious significance of the weeklong holiday, with the passing of each of the past 93 years in this country, Hanukkah has become more of a “Jewish Christmas.” Jews still try to emphasize to their children that this is a holiday on which to celebrate religious freedom, but no Jewish child is satisfied nowadays with nuts and raisins and spinning wooden tops. It is not the meaning of the blessings recited at the lighting of the nightly candle that is of interest to the children, nor the ancient triumph of the Maccabees. Their concern. Is what present their parents’ largesse will equal that of the Christian or Jewish neighbor?
It would be a mistake for Sikhs, imitating their neighbors, to turn Guru Nanak’s birthday into the “Sikh Christmas.” For better or worse, Sikh children in this country are going to absorb its culture and language. If we want to indulge our children by giving them material things certainly not the best way to show our affection then let’s do it throughout the year. Guru Nanak said that all days are equally auspicious for worshipping God. By the same token, perhaps we can say that all days are equally good for giving our children toys and baubles. If we begin to make the Gurpurb of Guru Nanak a day when children expect gifts, then any of their attention that might have been directed to the spiritual significance of the day will be lost while we indulge their innate tendency toward greed. Georgia Rangel Alexandria, VA.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 24, 1993
