'Merry Chrismukkah:' How Delaware's interfaith families celebrate the holidays

When Marc Insinga was a teenager, he frequently wrapped holiday gifts for his brothers and cousins in the wrong color wrapping paper: blue and white for Christmas or red and green for Hanukkah.

With a mother who was Jewish and a father who was Catholic, Marc and his brothers were raised in different faiths. Marc and his younger brother were raised in the Jewish faith, his older brother in the Catholic one.

His parents decided the fairest way to decide who would be raised in what faith was to flip a coin when Marc was five.

Now, the Wilmington resident is raising two young Catholic-Jewish girls, or "second generation cashews" as he calls them. 

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During the holidays, they have advent calendars and gelt, chocolate coins popular among Jewish kids. When one daughter went caroling last week, her music teacher inserted "Happy Hanukkah" to the tune "Wish You a Merry Christmas" when singing for a Jewish family. 

Insinga's Catholic wife, Amy, is known in the family for making the best Matzohs. 

"When we celebrated both holidays, it was just a family thing," he said of his childhood. "Now Hallmark has Chrismukkah cards."

As the holidays begin, so do the family traditions. For local interfaith Delawareans — primarily Christian and Jewish families — this means merging religious celebrations, family recipes and decorations. While the religions have different beliefs, some "cashew" families find that the holiday season serves as a reminder of their similarities. 

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Like the rest of the country, a vast majority of Delawareans are Christian. Only six percent of the state's population belong to non-Christian faiths, according data from the Pew Research Center. Catholicism is the most prominent Christian sect in The First State with 22 percent, while 3 and 1 percent of Delawareans are Jewish and Muslim. 

About 20 percent of U.S. adults say they were raised with a mixed religious background, according to a 2016 Pew study. Data also shows that interfaith families are growing: 27 percent of Millennials said they grew up with multiple religions, which is 8 percent higher than Baby Boomers.

More and more young people are willing to marry outside of their faith, said Rabbi Robyn Frisch, director of InterfaithFamily Philadelphia. The national organization works with multi-religious families who want to learn more about Judaism.

Unlike their grandparents or great-grandparents, many young people don’t view different religious views as a deal-breaker for marriage, Frisch said. More religious leaders, particularly in Judaism, are also more accepting of interfaith marriages than they were 20 years ago, she said. 

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“I’m Jewish but I’m going to love who I love,” she said of the mentality.

Frisch often gives interfaith counseling to families and recommends it for parents trying to incorporate parts of each religion into their child's lives. 

This worked for Hockessin resident Andrea Moses, who is Jewish, and her Christian husband Tim Ciolkosz. The couple consulted with a priest and took interfaith classes before getting married. And while their three children are being raised Jewish, they still celebrate aspects of Christmas.

The family observes Hanukkah with different themed nights — such as pajama and game night. On Christmas, they open a few gifts from Santa under the Christmas tree and Ciolkosz makes a big breakfast for the kids, an ode to how he celebrated Christmas as a kid. 

Yet a majority of the family's holiday traditions involve acts of charity, a major tenet of both faiths. The children will drop off food to the homes of people less fortunate, clean veterans' grave sites and donate money from their piggy banks to a local charity.

"Our values are the same and it makes it easy to help them grow up as good people," Moses said. "Especially this time of year, you have to teach them to give back and help others and the less fortunate."

For interfaith families, Moses recommends one parent "take the lead" in a child's religious upbringing. According to the Pew data, about 46 percent of people raised in an interfaith family said their mother determined the child's faith. About 7 percent said it was only their father, while 41 percent said both parents were involved. 

"You can't really be both 100 percent," Moses said. "You are more one than the other, but you still can respect each other's traditions."

Insinga's two daughters are being raised Catholic. His wife, Amy, is a Catholicism teacher and Insinga has volunteered in some of his children's Sunday school classes.

Lori Gandy, of Bear, feels her children's diverse religious background will make them more well-rounded adults. Her two children are now at the age in which they teach their Christian friends and neighbors certain Jewish traditions.

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Gandy, who is Jewish, credits her synagogue, Temple Beth El in Newark, for embracing its interfaith families.

This isn't always common, she said. 

"You don't feel bad about saying 'I'm celebrating Easter with my family,'" she said of the temple's atmosphere. 

She and her family enjoy celebrating both Hanukkah and Christmas, two holidays that often overlap in December, because it further emphasizes the importance of spending time with family — not just opening presents. 

During the holidays, Gandy likes to decorate her house in a way that makes everyone comfortable, including her Christian in-laws and friends. Every year, she and her daughter decorate the Christmas tree, which isn't too far from the mysterious Elf on the Shelf and the family's menorah in the windowsill.

"We do play a mean game of Dreidel — my mother-in-law loves it," she said. 

Contact Meredith Newman at (302) 324-2386 or at mnewman@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @merenewman.