Cimorene

Excuse me while I get hung up on the "Jewish Christmas" thing, because, uh. No? Wha? They're completely different conceptually! (And that's just working from what I remember from going to a predominantly Jewish grade school and being raised sort of vaguely Christian- it's not like I have an in-depth understanding of everything associated with the two holidays.) (Also, what an awful thing to do to your kid, fobbing them off with a lame answer like that.)

Your thoughts on assimilation are interesting. (I'm personally agnostic, so I generally tend to just not think about such things because I'm rarely thinking about religion at all- and religion is something tough to talk to a lot of people about so it's a lot of times easier to just not ask questions, you know?)

Jewish Christmas! (Like I said before (I think) I live in an area with a high practicing-Jewish population, so many local people have at least a general notion of things, even if they aren't Jewish, so you don't hear stuff like that too often around here. Plus people are generally quite friendly, so if you don't know, you can ask and they'll happily share. I'm sure elsewhere in the city/suburbs you probably do hear weird stuff.)