How Interfaith Couples Celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah

Christmas cookies on Hanukkah? Well, why not. It turns out that interfaith couples who share each other's traditional foods are more comfortable with each other's religions.

We humans are the only animals on earth to use food more than to just to fill our bellies; we use food as part of our culture, to bind us together, socialize and celebrate. In fact, anthropologists have shown that when people emmigrate to another country, their native food is the last thing they give up in their new land--if indeed they ever give it up. Here are some ways to integrate food into your interfaith holiday celebrations.

Start off simply. Tanya Keith from Des Moines, Iowa, is Jewish and married to a Lutheran. They have a two-year-old daughter named Aviva who they are raising Jewish. "The High Holy Days are good to cook for because there is not a lot of overlap between interfaith holidays. They are conflict-free holidays." The Keiths serve apples and honey for Rosh Hashanah and make the holiday very child-oriented. "We also serve with special tableware and candlesticks to differentiate the holiday from the regular weekday."

The next thing is to think beyond Jewish and Christian. Each one of us is more than our specific religion. "Food was always an important part of every holiday," says Rosemary DiDio Brehm, an Italian Catholic from Tampa, Florida, who is married to Bill who is Jewish. "Every Christmas we served a 'bonata' that was passed down through the generations of my family." Brehm describes it as a 'stromboli' made with bread dough, stuffed with olives, sauce, garlic and scallions. "And we still serve it on Christmas Eve as a tradition." The whole family prepares and loves it, including the couple's two daughters Stephanie, 17, and Danielle, 15, says Brehm.

"I was brought up by a Jewish mother and a Greek Orthodox father," says Tanya Keith. On Passover, we integrate a lot of food cultures. We have more than a dozen people at our Seder--and the Christians usually outnumber the Jews. We serve Sephardic and Greek-style recipes. One of the best was a Greek lemon chicken we cooked for Passover."

Cooking like this, says Keith, makes her feel like she is practicing thoughtful Judaism.' It's very important to me to maintain the other parts of my heritage. It makes life very rich."

This Easter Keith plans to introduce a Greek egg ritual to her family. It's called 'Egg War' (using hardboiled eggs dyed red), and was a game she played as a child.

Dawn Kepler from Los Angeles has run informational and support groups for inter-marrieds for years. She strongly recommends sharing each other's food traditions and cultures as a means of generating good will and greater understanding between interfaith couples. "Food is a big way of coming together as a community and family," she says.

" I know an interfaith couple in which the mother is Chinese and raising the children Jewish. She has slowly been introducing Chinese recipes for Jewish holidays." Kepler's sister-in-law is from Tunisia. When Kepler's parents traveled abroad, they were treated to a Shabbat meal consisting of a traditional stew baked in rice and couscous. Another man who attends Kepler's interfaith group is from Guatemala. South-of-Mexican style foods regularly show up in his family's holiday meals.

How does an interfaith partner learn about each other's food? A great way is to attend meals at the other family's home on a holiday or go to parties hosted by people of the partner's religion.

Rosemary DiDio Brehm and her husband Bill go to a lot of Hanukkah parties. "On the Saturday before Hanukkah," she says, "we get 10 pounds of potatoes. For about three or four hours, we make the latkes. I do the batter and Bill fries them. And it's fun because we can cook outside in Florida."

Where do you turn to if you want to learn your partner's favorite holiday foods? "I recommend a non-Jewish [person] to join a synagogue and take a cooking class," says Dawn Kepler. The same holds true for a Jewish individual who wants to learn recipes for Christian holidays. A church may offer a special holiday cooking class. A woman may also turn to a girlfriend who is familiar with the food she wants to try. And you may even give your mother-in-law a chance at teaching you. "I learned how to cook latkes from Jewish holiday cookbooks that were given to me for our wedding," says DiDio Brehm.

"When interfaith partners learn how to make each other's traditional foods," says Brehm, "it's a way of showing that you care about the other person. The good thing about food is that is usually has little to do with doctrine. So it is non-threatening and it's something that the whole family can participate in."

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This article originally appeared in Jewish Family & Life!