The holidays can pose an interesting challenge for interfaith families. Many families raise their children in more than one faith and celebrate holidays from several religious traditions. But for many of those families, once Thanksgiving is in the rearview, they can be confronted with what some have coined the "December Dilemma." Patch chatted with North Bethesda resident Jessica Vistnes, a member of the Interfaith Families Project of Greater Washington, D.C. The group aims to support families like Vistnes'. Vistnes is Jewish, her husband is Christian, and the couple and their two children celebrate holidays from both religious traditions.

Patch: Which holidays do you celebrate and how do you celebrate them?

JV: During Hanukkah, we light the candles every night. My children are now teenagers, but when they were young they would get presents every night. And then we do Christmas — the whole thing, with the Christmas tree and Santa.

As we've become more comfortable over the years being part of an interfaith community, more comfortable that we celebrate both holidays, we started putting Christmas lights outside the house as well. We didn't do that so much in the early years — that took time. It seemed as though we were declaring to the whole world, "This is what we're celebrating inside our house." So I had to be comfortable with it.

Patch: How did you decide to celebrate both holidays?

JV: When we were dating and decided to get married, we talked about what we were going to do. For us, it was right to raise the children in both religions and celebrate both of their heritages. A lot of people make other decisions, but that seemed to be the right decision for us.

Patch: What traditions are unique to your family?

JV: We have a collection of nutcrackers, and when the children were little we used to make them talk and the children would say good night to them every night. It was very cute to see their faces — they were just enthralled with the nutrackers and the fact that they seemed to be talking to them.

Patch: Is there anything stressful about celebrating both holidays?

JV: The only stress was trying get enough presents to fill up the nights of Hanukkah when the kids were younger and then doing Christmas. Passover and Easter are harder ones, because there's more cooking going on. My husband's a great cook, and he usually cooks for Christmas. I tried to cook for Hanukkah — a lot of people do latkes [On Hanukkah], and one year I put all my effort into making latkes and my kids didn't like it. Now, sometimes I buy the frozen ones.

Patch: What is the most important part of celebrating the season?

JV: For us as a family it's creating the traditions. When the kids were younger, it was creating a sense of magic. Now, my kids enjoy lighting the candles and saying the blessings in Hebrew. When we tell them it's time for the Hanukkah candles, they come running, even if there isn't a present involved. It's nice that they enjoy that part of it.

As part of our interfaith family group, we get gifts to give to children who need them My daughter contributes half the money towards the gift. She's very excited to go help pick out the gift. So it's grown and changed as the kids have gotten older — when they were kids, you create the magic, and now as they've gotten older we try to teach them about giving back and helping others in need too.

Patch: Was there anything uncomfortable for you in the beginning about celebrating Christmas?

JV: In the beginning, it felt strange to go pick out a Christmas tree just because it wasn't part of my experience growing up. Now I really enjoy decorating the house for Christmas since it's our family tradition. It's very important to my husband and it's something we all enjoy as a family. In the beginning, it was different. Every year, our group has a discussion on the "December Dilemma." A lot of people in my group are at different stages and different levels of comfort. I think it's really helped being part of a group and talking about these things and the difficulties when you're part of an interfaith families.

Patch: Do you hope your children will continue on your traditions?

JV: I hope so. They're going to have to make their own decisions in the same way I made my own decision. I hope we've given them those values and that sense of tradition, and I'm hoping they're going to want to keep doing that. I'm sure they're going to come up with their own tradition just as we've come up with our own as a family. A lot of things my husband does are things he grew up doing — like, Perry Como has to be playing when we start decorating. I don't know what the kids are going to take away and decide to repeat. It will depend on who the kids marry and what their religions are. I hope we've given them a good grounding in both religions so that they'll feel comfortable in the future keeping the traditions going.