For Baha’is, it is an opportunity to enjoy the feeling of goodwill, the yearning to serve mankind and have peace on earth, and the overall spirit of unity – all essential elements of Baha’i beliefs and practices – that often percolates this time of year. And while Baha’is wait with excited anticipation for Ayyam-i-Ha to come between February 26 and March 1, a holiday that is devoted to spiritual preparation for the Baha’i Fast, celebrating, hospitality, charity and gift giving, many also enjoy celebrating the December holidays, such as Christmas and Hanukkah, at the homes of family members or friends who are not Baha’is.

Since the Baha’i Faith is only about 165 years old — it began in 1844 — many Baha’is come from family backgrounds where other spiritual traditions were embraced and celebrated. Here are a few reflections from Chicago-area Baha’is on those childhood experiences as well as what new traditions they started or plan to start with their children.

Mehrtash, Sarah, Mona and Nura Olson

Photo by Susan Sorano Photography, ChicagoMy wife Sarah grew up as a Christian and I grew up with Baha’i relatives on my mother’s side, and Christian relatives on my father’s side. We both celebrated Christmas as children and youth, sometimes in our homes, or in the home of family members.

Sarah became a Baha’i in college, and then her parents joined the Baha’i Faith. During my college years, my father became a Baha’i and about a year later we stopped celebrating Christmas as an immediate family. Sarah and I still have extended family that are Christian, but don’t regularly celebrate Christmas with them anymore, mainly due to geography.

While I relished these celebrations as a child, I am not now missing any of it (other than the big tin container of cookies that my grandmother sent us each Christmas, as this reminds me of her; she passed in 2004).  I speculate that I don’t miss the rest of it because our Christmas celebrations were overwhelmingly focused on gifts (very exciting in the moment, admittedly), with much less emphasis on it being a special time for family, and nearly no emphasis on the concept that this had something to do with the birth and life of Jesus. I suppose if there had been more emphasis on Christmas being a special time for family and spirituality, I might now have more of an attachment to those celebrations.

This, to me, is the interesting thing about the holiday season. For some, it is really a religious thing. For others, it has nothing to do with religion. Sarah has a Jewish friend, a former college roommate, who is now living in England and celebrating Christmas over there, after having resented it growing up as a Jew. She expressed her opinion to Sarah that she has come to see Christmas as a way to lift one’s spirits in winter. “You need lights,” she said. And then there’s the opposite viewpoint summed up by this bumper sticker I saw: “Put the CHRIST back in Christmas.”

Now that Sarah and I have two daughters we often talk about how to handle the December holiday season and provide a context for them, knowing that it’s such a huge part of American culture. For our oldest daughter Mona, who is 3, we’ve started teaching her about the significance of Hanukkah and Christmas by recounting simple and short stories of related histories. Also, we participate in holiday activities such as a Menorah lighting ceremony, or Christmas mass.

Recognizing that the human tendency to label people or groups often achieves the consequence of transferring to the next generation the mentality of division, we are consciously striving to create a pattern of life for our family that focuses on unity with others, on natural participation in their ways of life, and on understanding their customs.

Recently we have been thinking a lot about how issues of identity (religious or otherwise) can be lifted to a level that focuses on commonalities rather than on differences. It is sometimes a challenge for us to conceptualize this, as this type of thinking is not yet second nature.  Yet we are trying to learn how to live our lives according to the principle of the oneness of humanity, because of the Baha’i teaching that the application of this principle in society will positively impact the development of our civilization in profound ways.

Yael Wurmfeld
I grew up in a Jewish home in Massachusetts, which was a religious home both culturally and spiritually. Hanukkah was always a very important and joyous festival for me, my father, my mother and my twin sister (my mother’s family all lived in Israel and my father no longer had his family, so it was the four of us).

The thing that made our celebration different than most, is that instead of lighting one menorah we each had our own menorah to light.  And my parent’s house had bay paned windows in the living room, so my Father always put a table in front of the window and we would put all of the candles in front of it.  While we were in the dining room having dinner, we could see the reflection of the candles.

We had an open door invitation to all of our friends to come over and light candles with us, especially on the last day of Hanukkah where the room would be ablaze with light. We also played dreidel, sang songs, read traditional prayers and ate traditional foods like potato pancakes and poppy seed cake.

My parents also saw to it that we had a gift every night, but not a “gift gift”; rather something like a plate full of fruit and nuts. We were aware that every night the light shined from the menorah – that this was the gift from God to humanity, which is really the whole story of Hanukkah.  And although I am now a Baha’i I still look forward to returning to Massachusetts when I can to continue celebrating Hanukkah with my family and friends.

Jeremy Pane

As a child, the oncoming Winter Holiday season always filled me with joy. The garland and greenery on street poles, the colored lights that appeared in the windows of houses around the neighborhood, and the threat, and often appearance, of snow dusting the yards and empty branches of the town always meant one thing to me. It meant that my birthday had nearly arrived.

I was born just before midnight at the very beginning of December. When my parents arrived at the hospital, the day was cold and dry and a grey pallor overshadowed the dark browns, sepias, and tans that colored the streets of my home town. However, the following day my father was amazed to find that he had to brush more than a foot of snow off his car in the hospital parking lot. It was almost as if snow had arrived to usher in my birth, though in truth, the snow could also have been for any of the other babies born within that twenty four hour period. Regardless, I have always had a very congenial relationship with snow.

Having been born in December often meant that family friends would try to appear understanding that I would be so lucky — or so unlucky — to have to share my birthday month with the celebration of the birth of Christ and the holiday atmosphere. Some with birthdays close to mine would even knowingly commiserate with being shorted presents because of the pressure of the holiday season.

However unbeknownst to many who would comment in the supermarket, I possessed a special talisman that alleviated any stress or disappointment that might creep into my month of December. I grew up a Baha’i. Growing up in a Baha’i family meant that Christmas day never included presents carefully lying under a colorfully decorated tree unless we were visiting one of my grandparents’ houses. Often, it would be a day much like any other winter day though usually my family would take time to read from the New Testament on that day about the birth of Christ. When we were at grandparents’ houses we would often accompany them to church and happily sit through the Christmas service.

One winter I remember visiting a family friend and the joy of lighting the first candle on the menorah. I remember really wanting to light the rest of the candles too but understanding that the lighting would be done on subsequent days. Afterward we played with a dreidel, though we never figured out how exactly to play the game because of the confusion over many years of differing house rules. It was a blast.

I guess I am most thankful for learning the importance of sharing during the holidays. Whether my family was sitting around a Christmas tree or not, I always was contented to celebrate that God’s love for humanity was so great that He sent mankind a redeemer. Whether I sat at a table with latkes or a table with Cheerios, I was inspired by being able to identify the power of God’s generosity that abundantly overshadows our own earthly expectations.

Later on in the year, I was pleased to be able to recognize the fortitude and beauty of subjugating our own human desires in my Muslim friends’ sacrifice during Ramadan which often fell so close to our own Baha’i month of fasting.

I am even happy to share my birthday snow with everyone who is excited or amazed by its arrival. In this way, the garland and greenery, the colored lights, and even the snow in this season become more than just decorations. Their outward appearance is just a symbol for peace and joy and celebration and there is enough room for us all to join in. After all, everyone benefits from peace on earth and goodwill towards men. And everyone benefits from being reminded to have a happy holiday, whenever that holiday may be.

Joan Weisberg and Dara Moore
I was raised in a Jewish family where I found joy and comfort in participating in our family rituals surrounding holidays such as Hanukkah, Succot and Shabbat. And when I was in high school I started sharing in Christmas celebrations with a friend and her family.

I’ve been a Baha’i now for the past 13 years but have enjoyed continuing to share these holidays with friends, neighbors and family.  They offer a time to gather, connect, and focus on the more nurturing and beautiful side of relationships guided by Spirit.

When I became a Baha’i my daughter, Dara, was already an adult with a multi-dimensional approach in her spiritual path.  Sometimes she joins me to celebrate both Baha’i holidays as well as celebrations of other religions with family and friends. She also joined me on pilgrimage to the Baha’i sacred sites in Haifa and Akka, Israel in May 2008.

The Hobbs Family

Both my wife and I come from Christian families but our experiences of celebrating Christmas were quite different.  She is from Zambia, where the commercial and consumer aspects of Christmas have not really taken hold.  So, Christmas day was mostly about spending time with family and celebrating the birth of Christ.  The whole gift giving aspect of the holiday is much less emphasized.

In my family, as is typical in the United States, the gift giving part of Christmas is huge.  As a kid I felt like the whole year was just an overlong build up to presents at Christmas. Fortunately I was raised in a wonderful Christian home, with parents who made sure that we understood the “reason for the season”.  However the gospel story was largely overshadowed in my young mind by Santa Claus, reindeers, and presents.

Now that we are Baha’is, we continue to celebrate Christmas with my Christian family members, and it’s actually a time of family fellowship that we look forward to. While celebrating Christmas with a group of Baha’is doesn’t make sense, it seems that celebrating Christian holidays with Christians would be a wonderful way to fulfill Baha’u’llah’s injunction to “consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship.”

This will be our first Christmas with our baby daughter, so there will definitely be a lot of learning ahead.  We don’t plan to give her Christmas presents ourselves, but we’re not going to have her refuse presents from others.

As far as Santa Claus goes, I think we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.  It’s not something we’re going to actively encourage, but it’s not something we’re going to take an overly rigid stance towards either. Ultimately, we hope that she will enjoy her celebration of Christmas and see it as a time to grow closer with her extended family.

I also personally hope that it will deepen her love and appreciation for Jesus Christ, which I think is an important thing for all Baha’is to do, especially those in a predominantly Christian society. I also think it will be important that we make sure that our celebration of the Baha’i festivals – such as Ayyam-i-Ha and Ridvan – are as full of joy and significance for her, as is the celebration of Christmas.