12/23/2025
Every year around this time I notice something quietly happening inside me.
I am Jewish. Deeply. Practicing. Rooted. And still, when I walk through an airport filled with garland and oversized ornaments, or hear jingle bells playing a little too loud in a store, I feel myself soften.
That wasn’t always true.
Growing up in Los Angeles, my relationship with Christmas was complicated. I moved through conservative schools, then more religious ones, and eventually public schools. Somewhere along the way, my sense of Jewish identity became tied not just to what I believed, but to what I rejected. Christmas was not ours. It was something to resist. Something to avoid. Something to keep at arm’s length.
That edge has softened over the years.
Not because of theology. Not because I suddenly feel religious meaning in a Christmas tree. I don’t. But because I’ve come to recognize what people are reaching for underneath it all.
When I see a Christmas tree, I don’t see a competing faith. I see people yearning to gather. To belong. To slow down. To sit in the same room and feel connected, even if just for a moment.
We do the same thing as Jews.
We gather around the menorah, or more precisely the hanukkiah. We let our children light the candles. We stare into the flames. We remember thousands of years of history distilled into a single glow. We say a few prayers. We sing a few songs. We eat potato pancakes. We open presents, a tradition that is very much borrowed from Christmas itself.
The American Jewish experience is complicated. Beautiful and fraught. Especially now. Especially in this political climate. It holds pride and fear at the same time. Belonging and otherness in the same breath.
And still, every year, when I see the lights and hear the music, I find myself smiling.
People are gentler right now. A little more generous. A little more hopeful. There is a collective yearning for a simpler time where we can eat, drink, and be merry. Where the world pauses just long enough to pretend we are okay.
As a couples counselor, I see the other side of this too.
The holidays are rarely simple for the people I work with. They often start quiet and empty, then suddenly fill with emergency sessions. Urgent calls. Last minute attempts to fix things before a dinner, a visit, a photo.
There is a pressure we put on holidays and birthdays that I am not sure is healthy.
Families fly in from different places. Everyone wants to hold hands and be happy. Everyone wants the moment to feel meaningful. But trauma does not check the calendar. Neither does grief. Neither does resentment. Neither does the biological clock. Emotional reality does not wait for permission from the Gregorian calendar.
If someone is an adult, the only way they come to the table to heal is if they feel safe. And Christmas can make that harder. There is too much pressure. Too much expectation. Too much longing for things to be smooth and perfect.
That kind of yearning can make people brittle.
I do not know what the right answer is.
Sometimes people need to be pushed off the cliff and discover that their wings actually work. Other times, staying wrapped in a cocoon is the wiser choice.
As this year comes to a close, I find myself holding all of it at once.
A year where I went from obscurity to having more followers than I will ever meet in my lifetime. A year where I witnessed families repair relationships they thought were beyond saving. A year marked by horrifying acts of racism and terrorism alongside quiet, beautiful moments of connection inside people’s homes. A year where artificial intelligence became real and left some of us terrified and others strangely hopeful.
In a year like this, the only message I feel grounded enough to offer is this.
You only exist in relation to the people around you.
So take a moment. Look at who you are choosing to sit with. Who you are choosing to call family. Do not worry about politics right now. Do not worry about the past or the future. Just notice that there are people who want to be near you. That is not nothing.
And if you are reading this alone, if the holidays feel empty or sharp or isolating, know that my heart is with you. I wish I could sit across from you and hold your hand and remind you that connection does not always arrive on time, but it does arrive.
Wishing you all gentleness in the days ahead,
Dr. Jon
