My mom said she knew it was time for my world to be bigger when I asked, ‘Why are there so many Chanukah songs and so few Christmas songs?”
We must have had a whole Chanukah song repertoire at my Jewish preschool, although the only ones I can remember now are: 1. Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel 2. Light One Candle, and 3. The Adam Sandler Chanukah song.
Chanukah wasn’t a thing for my family, but I live in the world (this little slice of the world, anyway), and so it wasn’t too long before I understood that Christmas was a Very Big Deal. We were not one of those Jewish families that had a Christmas tree (power to you if you are). Christmas was CHRISTmas after all, and my parents made it very clear that it did not belong to us.
When I was a kid, my mom would work at one of the group homes she managed on Christmas Day so that the staff could have the day off with their families. She’d bring me along, and I only vaguely remember a sense of convivial mayhem.
Christmas certainly contributed to my sense of otherness as a kid. I remember watching the children line up at the mall to visit Santa, and my mom’s shrug…“we don’t do that.” The sparkly revelry wasn’t for me. (But I loved sparkly revelry!) The cheerful advertisements and the piles of presents and the wistful carols—none of it for me.
I was the only Jewish girl in the class—ok, it was me and Sarah, and then me and Sarah and Carin, a few Christmases later—but being left out of Christmas felt like some childhood curse.
In a politically correct gesture, we broke up the Christmas carols at school with a Chanukah song and a Kwanzaa song (It’s a Kwanzaa celebration! Feel the power far and wide! It’s a Kwanzaa celebration! Feel a sense of joy and pride!). But none of the black girls in my class celebrated Kwanzaa, and Chanukah felt like a lame consolation prize for sad Jewish children. Has anyone ever genuinely enjoyed playing dreidel?
I’ve grown to love Christmas: the glittery lights, the heady pine smell on the streets, the cozy sweater wearers. I even like the red Starbucks cups. I get all mushy hearing carols. New York's magic gets amped up. Cookies! Rockefeller Center! The tourists, I didn’t love them so much. But I understand—they want some of that magic, too.
But this year, of course, is weird and different. There are no Christmas parties and very few tourists. We are grieving for so much. Christmas is a topnotch stirrer-upper of feelings every year, be they wonderful, or excruciating, or anywhere in-between. 2020 is on a whole new level.
I'm a believer in tradition. My Christmastime tradition evolved into the New York Jewish standard: movies and Chinese food with my parents. Sometimes friends came alone, Christmas refuges. I grew to love it.
It was Christmas six years ago when I started talking to my now husband Tony on Hinge. I loved hearing about his family’s Christmas traditions in England: smoked salmon and Champagne for breakfast, turkey with all the trimmings, port and Stilton at the end of the night.
In the years since then, we’ve had all sorts of Christmases together. Right after we moved in together, Tony’s family came from England to visit us in Brooklyn. I roasted a turkey and tried my first bread sauce (I still don’t really understand bread sauce.) Since then, we’ve been back to England to celebrate. One year on the Upper West Side, we prepared a goose. It wasn’t my favorite, but the potatoes that cooked in the goose fat were stellar. Last year, we went to see Little Women at Alamo Drafthouse. I was five months pregnant.
This year, Tony’s mom has already been preparing for some time. After eight months, Simone has finally just met her grandparents. We’ve just received our negative covid tests, which means after seven days in the house, we can finally go for a walk. I miss movie theaters and restaurants and my old life, and I’m unthinkably grateful for Simone, my wonderful family, even the two (two!) gorgeous Christmas trees I get to enjoy in my in-laws’ home.
The other day, I made them their very first latkes. They came out great, if I do say so myself.
This year calls for making new traditions. My heart is simultaneously heavy and very, very full.
Wishing you love and light this season.
Last year at Cafe Eloise in Brooklyn with our neighborhood Jewish lesbian doggy Santa