In our congregation, there is a Christmas Eve service where I (as a Jewish person) would not feel like I belonged if I weren’t in the choir. They read the biblical story of Jesus’ birth and there are very traditional Christian carols. There is a party after service on one Sunday where they have Christmas activities as well as a dreidel table. There is also a service for Solstice/Yule. I’ve not seen as much observance of other Christian holidays. I was shy about coming to Easter Sunday until I finally did and the service was not about Jesus. I think there was an egg hunt for the kids. There was also a Jewish-led Passover Seder that same week.

I think the easiest way to put it is that you’ll likely see Christmas themed decor and events, maybe Christmas Eve candle light and songs, maybe a nativity play (perhaps re-written to share a message special to the kids), you may see Winter Solstice activities, Hanukkah activities, maybe Kwanzaa activities too. It’s a season for lots of holidays, and UU people often enjoy celebrating all of them.

You won’t see people breathing dogma down your neck or trying to convince you of anything.

You’ll hear about the holidays and what they mean to the congregants, with stories about how people grew up or stories about how the holiday messages might reflect UU Values.

You’ll see people enjoying the nostalgia of the holidays, or perhaps mourning the state of the world especially during the holiday season, or maybe the congregation will see the holidays as a time to rally people together to make positive change in the world.

Do you have any specific thoughts or worries that you’d like to talk about?

Everyone is always invited to all activities, no one is excluded in UU. Pick and choose how you’d like to participate, or just go to everything if you have the time for it. It should all be enjoyable one way or the other. :)

This should be generally true for all the major holidays (of many religions) throughout the year. If there’s a holiday that’s less known in your area, anyone willing to organize events is welcome to create holiday themed activities, gatherings, or content for services. People love attending holiday events, who doesn’t enjoy any excuse to celebrate, play, and/or learn something new?

In short: YMMV.

Our Christmas Eve evening services are pretty Christmasy, insofar as there's a pageant and the story of hope in a birth is the theme (though I don't recall anyone ever saying Jesus is divine!) and traditional carols are sung.

Our standard Sunday service on Christmas week isn't really heavy on Christmas beyond the music. We do have a relatively recent tradition of lighting Advent candles, though even that is secularized to a degree.

My UU church growing up was lay-led and quite unpredictable on holidays.

Like many of us, I don't have a lot of experience with what other congregations, and, as is often repeated, once you've visited one UU congregation, you've visited ONE UU congregation. But not oly does every congregation approach the holidays, my own congregation has changed things up from year to year. Some years there has been greater emphasis on Winter Solstice & Yule. Other year, more on Hanakah, but there has been one consistent, the Christmas Eve Service. Now granted, the homily is always more inclusive and typically focuses on the ideals of the season (peace, joy, hope) and less on the theology of who "baby Jesus" is believed to be by Christians. Still, some emotion based traditions are still there. I think people would have a cow if we didn't close the service holding lit candles and singing "Silent Night." But, even as an atheist and former Evangelical minister, I am not put off by this practice, and am able to join in with everyone else in communal love on that night.

Our congregation is predominately exChristian, but there are plenty of exJewish people as well. We are all inclusive. Each of the holidays for both groups are usually celebrated or at least mentioned in the service.

We also rent the UU facility to a Jewish congregation that is very open minded and more like UCC.

Point is that UU congregations are very individual.

It really depends on the church. My church has a “no-rehearsal Christmas pageant” on whichever Sunday falls before Christmas, and often a separate candlelight caroling event. Other UU churches may do nothing in particular to observe Christmas, or may have the aesthetics of Christmas decorations without mentioning it during services.

A perennial UU favorite for Christmas readings is “Each night a child is born is a holy night” by Sophia Lyon Fahs which pretty well sums up a typical UU attitude to Christmas.

Just to let you know, there's an organization called UUs for Jewish Awareness and they have a low volume mailing list, do occasional seders, and host a Mussar Study Group.

It would not be at all inappropriate to send a polite email asking to have the order of service emailed to you a couple of days in advance so you know what to expect. Trust me, they won't mind.

I've been to congregations that hold a Blue Christmas service (in addition to a holiday celebration) for people who are mourning or just sad/lonely. It's quiet and comforting. My point is, this is a complex emotional time for lots of people and that is understood.

As for services, I've been to one where they did the bible story, one with a Charlie Brown Christmas theme, one that was explicitly world holidays / Solstice..... but if you congregation felt Christian, it's probably going to be Christian.

For the past couple of year we have had two Christmas Eve services, one earlier for families, which is mostly upbeat carols and one later (7pm) that is a lot of music (we are a very musical congregation) ending with a candlelighting. I wouldn't call it traditional but we do tend to sing traditional carols.

Throughout December we have had services about Rohatsu (Buddha's birthday), a youth service celebrating all sorts of December holidays and next week the service will be about Hanukkah.

Just mentioning that there are Jewish congregations that take pro-Palestinian stances and even more that have members with differing views on Zionism. Especially Humanistic Judaism, but also Reform and Reconstructionist. JVP isn’t correct about that. I’m a UU member and also a member of a secular synagogue. ETA: although there may be limited synagogue options where you are.