October, November and December are some of my favorite months of the year. There are holidays such as Halloween and Thanksgiving, followed by one of my favorite, Christmas. Being Muslim, I always get weird looks from people when I tell them that Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. It’s true, I am Muslim and I love Christmas time. To specify, I love the atmosphere that comes with Americanized Christmas.
I don’t love the consumerism that comes with Christmas. I don’t love the idea of minimum-wage workers working overtime instead of being with their families. I don’t love how commercialized a religious holiday has become. I understand that Christmas was originally a holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus. There are several Christian traditions that come with traditional Christmas such as going to mass, having a tree that represents Jesus and singing Christmas songs to talk about the birth of Jesus. Parts of traditional Christmas still do exist today but Christmas in America has definitely evolved from these traditional ideas.
What I actually love about Christmas time is the community, culture and happiness that seems to come with it. There are very few days in the year where the entirety of the U.S. seems to comes together to celebrate one thing happily. Though not everyone in the U.S. today celebrates Christmas, including my family, everyone has some sort of sense that it is Christmas time and that it is a time of coming together with the ones you love.
With that being said, I do understand that Christmas is not always a happy time for everyone. People have bad memories associated with Christmas and not everyone has a family or someone to celebrate Christmas with. Christmas can be a hard time for many, a time of mourning, sadness and nostalgia.
In my experience, Christmas has always been a time where I can watch Christmas movies, listen to Christmas music, walk down any sort of downtown and look at Christmas lights, etc. Even though my family does not celebrate Christmas whatsoever, I have different traditions that are my own that happen during Christmas time. My friends and I play Secret Santa or White Elephant, we drive around to see Christmas lights, we bake Christmas cookies with siblings, and for an instant, we forget everything else bad going on in the world.
For some, Christmas is like an escape from reality for a quick second. It is a time where you can be with the people you love and do what you enjoy. Celebrating the small things in life such as putting up lights with grandparents or decorating cookies with a sibling.
So yes, I am a Muslim who loves Christmas time and most aspects of it. I come from a family that has never celebrated Christmas yet I am that person that starts listening to Christmas music right after Halloween and sometimes even before. I have 12 Days of Christmas socks and a small Christmas tree in my room. I love Christmas time because it is one of the only times of the year where people come together with their families and communities, are happy and kind to others, and there is goodwill in the air.