Family gatherings of all sorts. Kids on vacation. Slow time at work. Colleagues, friends, traveling.

For some, this time of year is fraught with challenge. For example, a sixth-grader in Galeem (our Sunday school) shared a December dilemma: With one parent being Jewish and the other Christian, there is overlap of birthday, Hanukka and Christmas. “By the time we get to Christmas, I won’t have any presents left!” (I suggested that with a little self-control and delayed gratification, some gifts from the earlier celebrations could be set aside for the later ones.)

Most of us are living with intermarriage as a fact of life in our immediate or extended families. And this time of year can make for awkward get-togethers. Do we invite our non-Jewish in-laws to a candle-lighting? Do we attend their tree trimming party, participate in gift-giving?

When parents are of different religions, how do we honor their choices? When a grandchild in a mixed household asks a “why” or “which” question, how do we hold our religious ground while opening our loving arms?

We are pleased (and relieved) when our child’s non-Jewish partner chooses to enter our covenant. Are we mindful that there is another family that may be as upset as we would be were the circumstance reversed?

Challenging.

Even absent the interfaith issue, how do we feel when our children or grandchildren choose a Jewish path with which we are uncomfortable? We can wonder — and we may ask! — how they ended up more observant, or less so, than we raised them.

Whether within the tent or outside it, making their own decisions is something we taught them. So what do we do?

I suggest that we maintain our personal Jewish connections and standards of observance — even if that means saying, “No, thank you. Let’s get together another time.” That we create or participate in celebrations within our comfort zone, cognizant of dilemmas that might be posed to others.

We need to reconcile ourselves to the fact that our disappointments are not others’ lives. And, most of all, family or friends, we need to show the love!

Shabbat shalom ! שבת שלום