Today on Christmas day, i felt really pathetic watching TV with the kids and every show was about Christmas and Santa Claus etc etc… Pathetic because i kind of felt a glimpse of confusion in my son’s eyes… We didn’t even celebrate Eid properly because everyone was busy…and then oh we don’t celebrate Christmas cose we are ’ muslims’ .. money making muslims that is.. we gather the biggest profits on Christmas but we just don’t celebrate it..
Even when we do celebrate Eid nicley and have the relatives and friends over.. as soon as we open the front door and walk outside in those fancy desi clothes.. we start to feel like aliens from another planet. The kids who are born here.. how must they feel .. about this..what might they go through.. what emotions might they over come.. thinking that its all around you .. but you are not a part of it.. it musn’t be easy on them..
im a muslim...and we celebrate xmas but not the whole presents thing ...but we do hve the family dinner ...why do u feel like a alien ..u should feel proud n let people stare ....u shouldnt care wat other people think ...btw r u from the states?
They can learn about christmas all they want i wouldnt worry too much about that. Emphasis IMHO should not be on not celebrating christmas, but should be on celebrating Eid properly.
Just make sure they know the proper importance of Eid i.e. on eid day
make it a point to not send them to school
make it a point that you and the other half get a day off from work
dress them up nice and tidy (not necessarily buy new clothes everytime)
take em to eid salat, come back to a celebratory family breakfast
spend the whole day taking them to visit relatives, family, friends, neighbours (especially others with kids their age)
maybe a little talk about what eid is all about
and if you want to go the extra mile even visit a charity, home for the old etc to instill a civic sense in them
also if possible avoid talk of shopping and what savings youre getting and what deals you found.
Its not easy and it definitely requires extra effort on your part. But you'll be glad you put in that extra effort. I dont have any kids so i shouldnt be one to speak but i do have seven nephews and neices and a truckload of nephews and neices from cousins. I've been giving them this schpeil for the last however many years and it seems to be working pretty well.
hin33, just an opinion, maybe, you and your family can see the positive in being able to maintain a good balance between what is your holiday and what is others and still be happy on both.
you don’t have to feel guilty in accepting have a nice Eid Mubaraak greeting from a non-Muslims and similarly, it wont hurt u to say happy holidays or Merry Christmas to your neighbors and colleagues as u are in america, canada or europe.
we need to take human pride in being able to translate our happiness in harmless in Christmas’s case a religious celebration of people from other faiths.
be easy on yourself and maintain a
balance on this integration vs. acculturation that might take away all sense of reasonable celebrating traditional holidays altogether.
absolutely look at the charity and giving aspect of holidays and teach children about that, instead of mindless spending on new things or toys.
half of the reason why holidays are no more simply a matter of good time with family that gets together, is because adults have turned them into profiteering gift-giving business occasion. that is true in any culture or country these days.
everything is turned into money making or spending opportunity.
no matter how useless it might be..
in your better judgment, do the best you can in sharing food or decorating your home for Eid or as a gesture of respecting the celebration of Christmas, and enable your children to learn about different faiths. that is not forbidden, my God, in Islam.
for children to be open minded and at the same time, holding on to their own faith is the real thing that they should be trained to always keep in mind.
a balance must be struck and we should not be exclusivity oriented. that is not the way to be, even as good Muslims.
best,
Dushwari
Nice advice Cheegum. Thanks .. I used to panic a lot about them not learning about deen and culture when they were younger so i did instill those values in them.. Alhumdulillah now they understand their religion maybe better than a kid of their age living in pak.
But what i feel now is.. i feel that they must feel left out when its Christmas time..and i feel that i am not compensating enough... for what they are missing.
But I appreciate all the points u made.. we follow most.. except the charity and talk..
what i think that us pakis dont do is give each other gifts on Eid.. which is something that is encouraged in our religion generally .. guess we get too stingy.. arent we generally stingy and like ..to not waste money on giving a present to the mail man.. i mean 'whats the need' kind of a thing..
^ We give eidee, but thats mostly for children...not adults to each other..btw, kinda offtopic but i've seen./heard of mothers taking her kids' eidees and whatever gifts they receive and give them somewhere else.thas messed up
Dushwari.. This is what i had to explain to them about Christianity when the question was first raised.. I told them.. Jesus (PBUH) is not son of God but a prophet of God .. And that is what Jesus (PBUH) had taught his people but as time passed Christian people forgot what Jesus had taught them and they started to believe that He is God or son of God.. Now this is why God sent Mohammad (SWS) so that he could correct people who had forgotten... So They take Jesus' name with respect knowing that he was a prophet of God..
I hope and pray that they grow up to be good muslims and with less confusions ..
p.s. Gift giving isn't in my opinion a bad thing. it brings people together.. and we should do it more ..
i agree and i think you are doing fine with your children about teaching them about faith and the difference in people's beliefs. we dont want to be seen as self righteous without a solid reason, which unfortunately some people do regarding faith and beliefs about prophets.
inshallah, your children will be fine. :>
best,
Dushwari
dont u ever.. ever get even just a lil bit of fear that ur kids might get too much into a culture u dont want them to absorb...
this fear haunts me
But Hin... keeping them too much away from norms of surrounding is also not very healthy
Just the other day, a 5 year old girl in our family announced in her class, in front of other little kids that there is no such thing as santa.
As much as it was true, it was politically very incoorect thing for her to say, and that is only because this is what preached to her in her home
Why cant we raise our kids as good muslims, and a good american at the same time.
Forget about christmas, I heard the same argumenet about Halloween. although I think that its a cheap excuse fo muslim parents, not to buy costume for the kids or candies to give away.
For kids, xmas is gift giving, lights decorating, being happy kind of time.
What will you tell your 5 year old kid, when you go to the mall, why she/he should not have her picture taken with santa, while you are there taking advantage of chrtsmas sale :)
Nice advice Cheegum. Thanks .. I used to panic a lot about them not learning about deen and culture when they were younger so i did instill those values in them.. Alhumdulillah now they understand their religion maybe better than a kid of their age living in pak.
But what i feel now is.. i feel that they must feel left out when its Christmas time..and i feel that i am not compensating enough... for what they are missing.
But I appreciate all the points u made.. we follow most.. except the charity and talk..
what i think that us pakis dont do is give each other gifts on Eid.. which is something that is encouraged in our religion generally .. guess we get too stingy.. arent we generally stingy and like ..to not waste money on giving a present to the mail man.. i mean 'whats the need' kind of a thing..
then do what the jewish folk do :) go to a nice restaurant and a movie on christmas day and build your own family tradition outside of it, so they don't feel left out of the holiday and the spirit of the season. theres no reason why you shouldn't see christmas as a nice holiday time off to get the family together and have a big dinner or all go out and do something fun. you're the parent- how your kids feel to a large extent is up to how you portray the holiday to them.
dont u ever.. ever get even just a lil bit of fear that ur kids might get too much into a culture u dont want them to absorb...
this fear haunts me
respectfully, then why are you abroad? you should be raising your children in a desi society where you don't have these fears and they don't manifest themselves in odd restrictions and rules on your children later on.
i've seen too many cases where parents talk to their kids about everything, expose them to every different culture around to make them aware, but then pull them back when it comes to participating. whether this is right or wrong is personal, but i do know firsthand the confusion and resentment it causes.
you have to be prepared for dealing with these things and your first reaction can't be, "you're grounded" or something else like, "your curfew is 7 o'clock" and meanwhile, you're kids are in their late teens, or even, "no, you can't go on business trips unchaperoned" or "you can't participate in university student life". remember to keep your perspective in check while you teach your kids and not to let fear override your logic.
We do celebrate xmas as a holiday to share the spirit of giving - peace on earth, goodwill to man and all that. Its supposed to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus who in Islaam, was a respected prophet so I dont think it would be haraam to acknowledge the holiday in some way. But thats really a personal choice.
There is another Muslim family near us whose son goes to kindergarten with my son. They do not celebrate xmas but they do Eid in a big way, as Ch. suggested. The boy is very proud of who and what he is, his mom comes to the class the day before Eid and gave a talk on what Eid is and gave out little Eid bags of candy to the entire class. The boy helped his mom explain to the class that Muslims do not have xmas - they have Eid. And he's fine with that. Their celebration includes gifts for the kids, big feast etc so its very similar to what the other kids have on their xmas day. They dont go to school on Eid.
It will be a big effort on your part but well worthwhile I think after seeing this other Muslim family and how well they're doing it.
We do celebrate xmas as a holiday to share the spirit of giving - peace on earth, goodwill to man and all that. Its supposed to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus who in Islaam, was a respected prophet so I dont think it would be haraam to acknowledge the holiday in some way. But thats really a personal choice.
There is another Muslim family near us whose son goes to kindergarten with my son. They do not celebrate xmas but they do Eid in a big way, as Ch. suggested. The boy is very proud of who and what he is, his mom comes to the class the day before Eid and gave a talk on what Eid is and gave out little Eid bags of candy to the entire class. The boy helped his mom explain to the class that Muslims do not have xmas - they have Eid. And he's fine with that. Their celebration includes gifts for the kids, big feast etc so its very similar to what the other kids have on their xmas day. They dont go to school on Eid.
It will be a big effort on your part but well worthwhile I think after seeing this other Muslim family and how well they're doing it.
As much as i am seeing it now.. its more of a lesser effort from my side...
They can learn about christmas all they want i wouldnt worry too much about that. Emphasis IMHO should not be on not celebrating christmas, but should be on celebrating Eid properly.
Just make sure they know the proper importance of Eid i.e. on eid day
make it a point to not send them to school
make it a point that you and the other half get a day off from work
dress them up nice and tidy (not necessarily buy new clothes everytime)
take em to eid salat, come back to a celebratory family breakfast
spend the whole day taking them to visit relatives, family, friends, neighbours (especially others with kids their age)
maybe a little talk about what eid is all about
and if you want to go the extra mile even visit a charity, home for the old etc to instill a civic sense in them
also if possible avoid talk of shopping and what savings youre getting and what deals you found.
Its not easy and it definitely requires extra effort on your part. But you'll be glad you put in that extra effort. I dont have any kids so i shouldnt be one to speak but i do have seven nephews and neices and a truckload of nephews and neices from cousins. I've been giving them this schpeil for the last however many years and it seems to be working pretty well.
I mostly agree with what Cheegum said. I'll just add that also make sure to give the kids gifts for Eid. Remember to make it something special. Growing up in Canada that worked for us just fine for us, Alhamdulillah. It also made it easier that we had many Muslim family friends who did the same. It seems like many of the Muslim families are doing the same with the newer generation.
great advice cheegum and i totally agree with this. :k:
I would also like to add the tradition of gift giving on eid…a tradition that we started in our family several yrs ago. Especially for the young kids (ages 2-6). I always make it a point to wrap up gifts for the little kids in our family and present it to them on eid. It doesnt have to be extravagent (no more then $10 per child). They enjoy gathering around and opening them up…no matter how little or big the gift is…the looks on their face is priceless. For the older kids I give them money…because by a certain age they value money more then boxed gifts.
Also…other then the religious aspect of Eid. Eid is and should be all about the kids. In our family we have parties that keep the kids in mind (ie pony rides, moon bounces, art projects, etc). The entire family and sometimes the community chip in for the costs so it’s not a burden on just one family.
We have to give the kids a reason to look forward to Eid. Afterall they are just that…KIDS! They wont be too excited at this age with just going to namaz and visiting family members and that’s it. We have to show them that Eid can be just as fun for muslims as christmas is for christians. Besides we have two eids and they only have one christmas
TERRIBLE GUY...sorry i just read your post. your thoughts were the same as mine :)
one more thing...in addition to gift giving and eid parties for kids...i forgot to add chand raat as well. That is something that gets kids excited about and it makes them look forward to eid.
For the older kids I give them money…because by a certain age they value money more then boxed gifts.