How Interfaith Couples Celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah

Christmas cookies on Hanukkah? Well, why not. It turns out that interfaith couples who share each other's traditional foods are more comfortable with each other's religions.

We humans are the only animals on earth to use food more than to just to fill our bellies; we use food as part of our culture, to bind us together, socialize and celebrate. In fact, anthropologists have shown that when people emmigrate to another country, their native food is the last thing they give up in their new land--if indeed they ever give it up. Here are some ways to integrate food into your interfaith holiday celebrations.

Start off simply. Tanya Keith from Des Moines, Iowa, is Jewish and married to a Lutheran. They have a two-year-old daughter named Aviva who they are raising Jewish. "The High Holy Days are good to cook for because there is not a lot of overlap between interfaith holidays. They are conflict-free holidays." The Keiths serve apples and honey for Rosh Hashanah and make the holiday very child-oriented. "We also serve with special tableware and candlesticks to differentiate the holiday from the regular weekday."

The next thing is to think beyond Jewish and Christian. Each one of us is more than our specific religion. "Food was always an important part of every holiday," says Rosemary DiDio Brehm, an Italian Catholic from Tampa, Florida, who is married to Bill who is Jewish. "Every Christmas we served a 'bonata' that was passed down through the generations of my family." Brehm describes it as a 'stromboli' made with bread dough, stuffed with olives, sauce, garlic and scallions. "And we still serve it on Christmas Eve as a tradition." The whole family prepares and loves it, including the couple's two daughters Stephanie, 17, and Danielle, 15, says Brehm.

"I was brought up by a Jewish mother and a Greek Orthodox father," says Tanya Keith. On Passover, we integrate a lot of food cultures. We have more than a dozen people at our Seder--and the Christians usually outnumber the Jews. We serve Sephardic and Greek-style recipes. One of the best was a Greek lemon chicken we cooked for Passover."