<p>We recently received a nice “Happy 2010!” photo card from a family with whom we are newly acquainted. The family is Jewish.</p>
<p>We are in the process of sending out our family Christmas card (with a photo). (We are Christian.) We live in a rural area and are acquainted with very few people who are not Christian, so I am pretty dumb about the ettiquette of sending “Christmas cards” to non-Christians.</p>
<p>Should I just send a photo and a note to our new Jewish friends, wishing them a happy new year? Or do Jewish families get Christmas cards from Christian friends?</p>
<p>I have received holiday cards from Jewish friends. One uses a UNICEF card and others use seasonal cards.</p>
<p>I come from a Christian background but send out seasonal (non-religious) cards that wish people happy holidays or seasonal joy. I do recall years ago when a Jewish person I worked with commented on being put off by receiving *religious *Christmas cards. If what you are sending is more generic I see no problem and imagine it would be appreciated.</p>
<p>I think of it as a way of keeping in touch at least once a year with **all **my friends of **whatever **belief.</p>
<p>It’s perfectly appropriate for you to send your usual Christmas card to non-Christians.</p>
<p>Text such as “Happy Holidays from the Whatever Family” is more tasteful than text that could be read as proselytizing, such as “Wishing you the warmth of our Redeemer’s Light.”</p>
<p>I would suggest sending a card that is more along the lines of a Season’s Greetings or a Happy Holidays card to your Jewish friend, not a Christmas card. (A Christmas card to someone Jewish would be in rather poor taste).</p>
<p>I’m Jewish, and it wouldn’t bother me to get a Christmas card, so long as it didn’t have an expressly religious message, and, perhaps, had some kind of handwritten “happy holidays” note added to it.</p>
<p>OP,
How would you have felt if your Jewish friends had sent you a “Happy Chanukah” card? At the least wouldn’t it have seemed odd or perhaps a bit thoughtless?</p>
<p>I don’t send religiously themed cards at all unless I pretty much know they will be accepted and appreciated.</p>
<p>That said, we get secularized “Christmas cards” from our Jewish friends.</p>
<p>One of the things I positively like about living in a city like LA is that you don’t make assumptions about another’s religion and most people bend over backwards to give “space.” Forex, I will <em>not</em> wish someone “Merry Christmas” unless I pretty much know for a fact that they’re Christian. The number of Jewish, Buddhist, Sikh(!!), atheist, etc. around here makes it just too much of a crap shoot.</p>
<p>I haven’t bought a “Merry Christmas” type card in years. I always go with the “Seasons Greetings” or “Happy Holidays” cards now so I can send them to everyone. I do often write “Merry Christmas” in the cards to those I know celebrate Christmas.</p>
<p>I totally agree with Northstarmom. The OP should think about how they would feel about getting a Hanukah card. One thing the OP could do if they wanted to use the photo card is to wish them a Happy Hanukah on the card. I generally use Season’s Greetings cards, and then add either Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukah on the bottom.</p>
<p>Unless you’re praying for their conversion in print, go ahead. I try to say Merry Christmas to people I know are Christian. </p>
<p>To be clear, I’m only offended when Christians take their version of Judaism and then impose that as though this is what Judaism actually is. The number of misconceptions is vast but a holiday card has absolutely nothing to do with any of that.</p>
<p>If you know the family well enough to know that they are Jewish, it is easy enough and more appropriate to send a Seasons Greetings or Happy New Year card. It suggests that some thought and consideration for the recipient went into the message. Miss Manners says so, too!</p>
<p>i would not be offended to receive a happy hanukkah card from a jewish friend. i would be flattered that they thought of me as a close friend. i would hope the same would be true if i sent a merry christmas card to a jewish friend.</p>
<p>^I wouldn’t mind getting a hanukkah card either. But I think Jews would be much more sensitive about getting a religious Christmas card, so even if I wouldn’t be offended if the shoe were on the other foot, I’d play it safe and send a Happy Holidays card.</p>
<p>It just makes no sense to wish something for someone that they won’t have. My Jewish friends are not going to have merry Christmases and I am not going to have a happy Hanukkah. Those are specific celebrations with their own traditions. Would people send the spare Confirmation card they have around the house to a young man for his Bar Mitzvah?</p>
<p>I use trees, and wish everyone peace for the holiday season.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, we would go Christmas caroling every year, since we were a bunch of choir nerds. One of our good friends is Jewish. She’s completely tone-deaf, doesn’t know the words to a single carol, but it would never matter–we’d always invite her along. She’d wear a Santa hat, dance around to the singing, and was in charge of the jingle bells. It was just joyfully delicious, and we would all have a riotously wonderful time. This is the same friend that would invite us to Passover Seder every year, where we would breathlessly bask in the quiet mystery of their family’s ceremonies, ask questions about their traditions when the ceremony was over, and would then add our merriment to the feast and eat incredible food. </p>
<p>Our general modus operandi was that it’s great to be different so long as you share, and that believing something different is no reason to leave someone out of any festivities. In the words of my Minnesotan forefathers, I think that’s a good deal. =)</p>
<p>If all you have available are Christmas cards, not “holidays” or “seasons greetings” cards, a note and a photo would be great. A personal note means more than a card, anyway.</p>