There are only a few times a year where the divide between goyim and the chosen people widens to a gaping chasm, and we're smack dab in the middle of one of them. Christmas for Jews is like trying to go out for a breakfast buffet in Abu Dhabi during Ramadan: Your choices are limited, you're probably bored, and you'll spend easily three-fourths of the day wondering what it's like to be in the religious majority, doing whatever that religious majority does. Christmas takes on a somewhat mystical air of untouchable mystery for us. What are they doing all day? Okay, yes, there's something about opening presents, but what about the rest of the day? What are they eating? Is there a Satanic tree-worshipping ceremony somehow involved? If not, why the fuck is there a tree?
The point is, we have a lot of questions. We're given the day off, we're all wished "Merry Christmas" so many times we stop correcting people, and we are expected to do "secret Santa" despite the fact that we've known Santa wasn't real since we were about five years old, but we don't really get the whole geshtalt experience. We write it off as a corporate orgy of hedonism and overeating (which we never do, obviously, there's a reason we're called the chosen people, and it's probably because we're cooler than you) and go our merry way, twiddling our thumbs until after Boxing Day in the hopes of one of our maverick goyishe friends shrugging off tradition and coming to hang out with us.
But in the meantime, for those tribespeople still struggling to find your place in this tinsel-infested world we're stuck in until the 27th, have hope. I've been around the Christmas block a few times before, and trust me, you will get through this. All it takes is a little insider knowledge, handed down from our forefathers, Isaac, Moses, Abraham and Joseph. So here's a comprehensive guide to Judaism on Christmas, Chag Sameach motherfuckers, best of luck.
1) Give in to your cultural destiny, and go eat Chinese food.
Don't be surprised if you run into your rabbi at the restaurant either. Yes, it's totally cliché but goddammit, dim sum is frickin' delicious.
2) Drink. A lot. All the Goyim are doing it anyway.
Oh yes, the real secret of Christmas is that all your non-Jewish friends get wasted with their families, so you might as well too. Put on your radio and play a drinking game to the tune of "drink every time you're reminded of all the Christmas fun everyone else is having," and good luck remembering what happened tomorrow.
3) If you can't hack the loneliness, attach yourself to a giving goyishe family.
Not only do they blatantly pity us for getting less presents, inviting you along to their festivities enables them all to feel very self-congratulatory about how they've spread the "Christmas spirit" of giving and joy. So it's really win-win: You get free turkey and booze, they get an entire year of moral superiority over their less giving Christian family members.
4) Gird your loins for the amount of times you'll awkwardly have to explain your lack of Christmas etiquette at said goy family gathering.
"No, my family doesn't stuff our turkey with sausage meat, but that's mostly because we don't eat animals with cloven hooves, sorry we're not sorry." Except don't actually say this. Your goy friends don't like to be reminded that you're different. It makes them uncomfortable.
5) Make at least one Jewish friend with whom you can hang out over Christmas.
None of your Christian friends know this, but Jews make a regular day of it when they are all busy being tortured by their drunk family members and being crammed with food. Be jealous bitches: We've got breakfast with the Rabinowitzs, lunch with the Rabbi's family, a mid-afternoon traipse past Rockefeller Center (and the droolworthy Saks 5th window, let's be real), and then CHINESE, CHINESE FOR ALL, table for 18 please!
6) If you're not journeying into the city, binge-watch Woody Allen movies.
He gets us. He really does.
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