Costume Day

As you know, DS2 is in a non-Jewish daycare which comes along with the recognition of non-Jewish holidays.  By now I’ve gotten used to it, although I still wish our old daycare was around and that he can be in a Jewish environment with Shabbos parties and kosher food.  But, since that’s not an option, we have to deal with days like last Wednesday- Halloween.

This year we got “lucky” and Superstorm Sandy paid us a visit, so school was cancelled on October 31st, which pushed off the festivities to today.  I know that nowadays Halloween is not really viewed as a religious holiday and people of all religions go out and collect candy, but it’s just not something we do.  To us, it’s still represents a day filled with traditions of another religion and we do not celebrate it.  Don’t worry though, my kids still eat plenty of candy, lol.

DS2’s daycare likes have all the kids dress up and they go candy collecting from classroom to classroom.  It’s not really candy that they’re eating- more like pretzels, cookies and cut up fruit.  Since DS2 is only two years old and I don’t want him to feel left out, I dress him up.  We don’t go crazy, but today he went to school with his fireman hat and fireman coat (he looked really cute!).  I refer to the day as “Costume Day” and leave it at that.  For him, it’s just another fun day at daycare.

I’m not afraid of my kids knowing about other religions and don’t feel the need to shelter them from that knowledge, but still think they are too young to fully understand that there are some holidays we celebrate and others that we don’t.  So, until they are a little older, I want to emphasize the ones we do celebrate and lay-low on the ones we don’t.

Are you in a similar situation?  What do you do?

Until next time,
Shaindy