As the holiday season draws to a close, I’m struck by just how much I’ve enjoyed it. Sure, Chanukah with my family was great, but I also get a real kick out of Santa. The Christmas lights. The music. Midnight Mass. The Tree. Those cardboard calendars that count down the days with Chocolate… Despite being Jewish, Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays. I may not be a Jew for Jesus, but I’m definitely a Jew for Santa.
That’s my sister on Santa’s knee, while I pose in the background… In a bathing suit. Maybe allowing me to dress myself wasn’t the best idea, mom?
On a cultural level, I think everyone can appreciate Christmas. When we were kids, Thérèse, our French Canadian Catholic nanny, used to leave individually wrapped raisins and nuts wrapped in tinfoil around her Christmas tree for my sister and me. Therese used Christmas to show us that it wasn’t about the size of the gift – it’s about the thought, and love, and being with your family.
To this day, I remember the excitement of opening those gifts. And to this day, my mom marvels at the fact that, at age 7, the Barbie dream house I received was less exciting to me than a single raisin wrapped in tinfoil. I don’t think that makes me less of a Jew – I do think it makes me a more well-rounded human being.
Here’s to all of us expanding our horizons in ’09…
Maybe it was a “Little Pony” dream house.
Maybe it was a gender-free toy.
But my feminist ancestors and I soundly state that it was NOT a Barbie dream house.
No Barbie. No how. No time.
Even if it were…you turned out beautifully (I mean wonderfully), so…no harm, no foul.
x0x0x0x0x0
I stand corrected. It was indeed My Little Pony. Maybe I was trying to make myself sound cool by pretending that I was allowed to play with Barbie as a child. I was not.
Lesley:
I am with you 100%. No 200%. I have 2 kids of my own these days, and they marvel at the idea of being rewarded by santa for being good all year. They find the fact that the penalty for not being good is a gift of ketchup, which my wife gets every year, even funnier.
Jonah