Every year, the media churn out stories about the so-called “December Dilemma” --- accounts of mixed families trying to balance Christmas or Hanukah. Considering that far less than a million households feature partners of split Jewish and Christian commitment this fascination seems odd, even bizarre. A recent New York Times story called “A Holiday Medley, Off Key” focused on these Jewish-Christian conflicts, citing the absurd figure of 28 MILLION mixed-religion households – when the highest number ever cited for all Jews in the United States is 5.2 million. The times featured a gay couple in which the Jewish partner said he “felt guilty” about decorating their Christmas tree. Actually, Jewish tradition is far more emphatic in disapproval of homosexuality than of hanging ornaments. The problem with all these stories – about blending religious elements, with Menorahs and “Silent Night,” dreydels and manger scenes – is that they trivialize both religious traditions. One of the couples described by the Times made that trivialization sickeningly explicit by describing a Jewish husband married to a Christian wife who honored his “tradition” by taking a bagel, covering it with shellac, inserting a red Christmas bulb into its hole, and placing it atop their tree as an interfaith ornament. I don’t believe that the Children of Israel have survived exile and pogroms and holocausts over the course of two millennia in order to see their faith expressed by a non-edible (and no doubt non-kosher) “Everything Bagel” that’s been carefully shellacked. The truth is Christmas is a serious holiday about the birth of the Savior; Hanukah (just concluded tonight)  is a serious holiday about resisting assimilation and standing up to paganism. Both deserve more respect than they get in cutesy stories about the “December Dilemma.”