If you had asked me yesterday morning what my Christmas traditions were, I would have said, “Why are you asking me that in October?....oh shit”
and then “I’m a Buddhist and my husband’s agnostic, so we don’t really do much”
and then “My biggest tradition is deliberately calling it 'Xmas' to piss off my Christian friends.” In short, I have never thought of myself as having any Christmas traditions. Sure, we fly South sometimes, but other than that? Eh. My big holiday is Halloween.
As an illustration of how much we have NOT done Christmas in the past, allow me to submit: A Madagascar Christmas was on TV. We watched it. Santa appeared on screen, in red suit, fluffy hat, white beard, with flying reindeer, the works. Frog, age 3 and a half, said, “Who’s that?” My son, almost 4, living in the United States of America, who can name eight types of dinosaurs, six of the planets, and accurately describe both photosynthesis and how engines work, was clueless about Santa. Until this year he went to a Jewish preschool, so he can sing the Hamentaschen song and say the Motzi, but Jolly Old Saint Nick? Not so much. This, of course, is all my fault. [DCFS HOTLINE: (800)25-ABUSE]
Which is why I was surprised yesterday to find myself in the odd position of being an unwittingly elected representative of Christian tradition. I’m quite used to being utilized by friends and acquaintances interested in checkin’ out the Dharma as a means of entry into Buddhism. If you ask me to take you with me to temple, I’m perfectly willing to escort you in (you know, so they don’t shoot you on sight). Plus, usually when I escort someone to temple it reminds me of what I like about going to temple, makes me more mindful of what the chants mean, reminds me why we sit zazen, yadda yadda om. But Christianity? No one in their right mind would expect me to represent Christianity.
Yesterday my friend MashugaMom (who lives in my building) stopped by with her baby for a few minutes and exclaimed, “What the hell, why do you have a TREE in your LIVING ROOM???”
Me: “Uh….it’s December. It's a Christmas tree.”
MM: “You didn’t do one last year.”
Me: “We went to Atlanta for Christmas; there was nowhere to store our fake one anyway.”
MM: “But, this one is real!???”
Me: “Is this line of questioning going somewhere?”
MM: “When are you going to put the lights and popcorn and stuff on it?”
Me: “No one does popcorn. It causes bugs. I don’t know, haven’t gotten around to it, probably tonight.”
MM: “Well HELLO???? Were you going to INVITE us?”
Me: “Uh…it’s kind of an informal, small, family thing, we don’t have a big party or anything, and, uh, you’re, like, Jewish.”
MM: “You’re a BUDDHIST.”
Me: “Touché.“
MM: “Well, you know, Monkey would love to get to help decorate a tree; he’s really having a hard time with being left out of all this stuff this year.”
[A few weekends ago we had planned to walk to a bookstore event together and we were running late and Frog didn’t feel like walking and we ended up needing to take the car. Her kid, Monkey, wanted to drive too, but couldn’t because it was Saturday, the Sabbath, and they observe the restrictions on using automobiles and the like from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. Her kid cried that HE wanted to drive LIKE FROG and IT’S NOT FAIR. “We can’t,” she told him, “but we can drive somewhere tomorrow; Sunday we can drive, will that make you happy?” He replied, “NO BECAUSE WE’LL STILL BE JEWISH!!!” So you know, that’s hard. In public preschool where they both are now, there is a LOT of emphasis on Christmas this time of year. The curriculum is surprisingly lacking in global context. I really feel for him.]
Me: [blank expression as I try to figure out whether I am too embarrassed at my lack of traditions to have people over to observe and possibly mock said VACUUM OF TRADITION.]
MM: “We used to have these friends who would invite us over to decorate their tree, and we’d have them over to light the menorah and to Shabbat and stuff.”
Me: “Well, what happened to those friends?”
MM: “Long story.”
Me: “I’ve known you for two years, you’ve never had us over for Shabbat.”
MM: “I’m just saying, in theory.”
Me: “Well….. sure, yeah, that’s fine...in theory."
MM: “Great! Monkey will be SO excited!!!”
This was at, like, 5pm. So, I picked my kid up from school and walked home and then Aquaman walked in the door and I told them Monkey might be coming over, and they were cool with that, and it turns out they’ll be over at 6:30 and we had exactly THIRTY MINUTES to eat dinner before they come (they keep kosher so just ordering pizza together was not an option). We scarfed some fish sticks and mac and cheese (NOTE: I am sure that at MashugaMom’s house they had a delicious homecooked meal in the same amount of time, because she is magic, the Jewish Martha Stewart—like, Martha Steinberg?) and when they showed up I was:
- throwing the paper plates in the trashcan whilst simultaneously
- searching the cabinets for year-old hot cocoa packets and
- whipping together some boxed pumpkin bread mix and
- replacing the ketchup in the fridge, and
- telling my son to go put on some pants.
I’m telling you, it was a regular Normal Rockwell painting.
So…our guest Monkey comes bounding in (weeKramer style) like he’s had a couple Red Bulls and is ready to PARTAY. It was clear from the get-go that we were not going to be ramped up enough to meet his expectations. Does Hanukkah include the use of cocaine? Because holidays clearly mean FUN FUN FUN to this kid. He was a party machine. I did have some chill carols (Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby) playing on the seasonal music channel on the TV, but that was ruined when TiVo switched over automatically to start recording So You Think You Can Dance. No way was I skipping recording SYTYCD, so I just turned the TV off. That’s right, folks, we chose reality TV over Christmas carols. So You Think You Can Masquerade as a Christian? Bwahahaha. Sucka.
Sometimes when one person is totally amped about something, it can ramp others up and make the whole place merry. I wish I could say that was the case, but we were all just kinda chill, and Monkey was on a higher RPM than the rest of us.
DISTRACTION #1: We decided to serve the boys some hot cocoa <-- MISTAKE and sat them down to watch Aquaman put lights on the tree while they drank their delicious warm elixir of the Gods.
At least that was the plan.
Both boys just started grabbing the GLASS ornaments out of the box and running around with them. Some of them that weren’t glass were nonetheless delicately crafted items from my childhood. If something is a relic of your past and is stamped with “Christmas 1977” on it, you don’t really want to hand it to a 4 year old. Just, you know, for future reference.
So we had a lot of rules get invented in rapid succession, which was no fun for the boys.
Rule #1: No jumping on couch.
Rule #2: No trying to trap your friend between the table and the wall until he collapses a lung.
Rule #3: No touching ornaments without me handing them to you first.
Rule #4: Do not grab tinsel that is wrapped around the tree and attempt to run to the other room, taking the tree with you.
Rule #5: Sit and drink your cocoa while I shoot myself read you The Night Before Christmas.
Rule #6: Please get Mommy a drink.
Then Frog, who has the ability to be really amped up himself as well, told Monkey he was “being bad.” Monkey suffered a bout of righteous indignation that spurred him to lecture Frog to get him to “have a little chit chat” about the “mean words” he used. [Editor's Note: Mashuga reminded me of the funniest part of this: when Monkey decided to emply the coping strategies taught in Pre-K and left the argument with Frog by saying "I'm going to walk away!" and Frog, my "brilliant" boy, said, "Okay, I will WALK AWAY WITH YOU." ]
DISTRACTION #2: “Look kids! PRESENTS!” I pulled out two “extra” ornaments, little frosted snowmen with bells for a body, one brass and one silver. Monkey didn’t like his brass one. I said he could trade with Frog if Frog was okay with that. Frog was (thank God, I thought too soon) okay with that, and went to make the trade, saying genially “I like that color better anyway.” Famous last words. So of course, as would any four year old , Monkey then decided that he wanted to keep the one he had and Frog could NOT have it.
Just then, the oven timer dinged (which means we were at 45 minutes at this point. Possibly the longest 45 minutes of my life), and I started to maybe believe in God a little. HALLELUJAH!
DISTRACTION #3: “Whooooooooo wants pumpkin bread?!?! “ MEMEMEMEMMEEME!!!! Who knew I would need a distraction from the distraction from the distraction.
I took the pumpkin bread out of the oven and started cutting it and putting it on plates while they finished up the tree. And see, here is the problem with having two children around: with special things like putting the star on the tree, you have to pick which kid gets to do it. How do people with two children handle this shit? I love Monkey, but it wouldn’t have been right to not have Frog do the star on his own tree. It’s his tree. He has helped do it every year since birth (the year we did not have a tree, he put the star on the one at my mom’s house because he is the only grandchild and she actually waited until we arrived so he could do it).
I mean, come on, some things are…..huh: Sacred. Some things are sacred. The fact that I was completely unwilling to have anyone but my son put the star on our tree took me completely by surprise. The fact that I felt any of it was in any way sacred was shocking to me.
As a compromise, Frogman offered that Monkey could put the menorah [we have a menorah because for two years my son got all this curriculum about Hanukkah at Jewish preschool, and we wanted him to feel like he knew what they were talking about) on the table. Well, no, that’s not the same, Monkey reasoned, because IT’S NOTTTTTTT HIIIIIIIIIGH ENOUUUUUUUUGGGGGGH!!!! So Aquaman decided they’d put the menorah (which also has a STAR on it, woo hoo!!!) on top of the bookshelf, and he would hold Monkey up so he could do it. But then Monkey was smelling the pumpkin bread, and he was torn. And he wasn’t sure he was willing to accept the menorah placement as a tit-for-tat replacement of the star placement job (he is already a lawyer like his dad, and he was worried that if he accepted a settlement in the form of menorah placement, then he would contractually forfeit all future rights to complaining about restitution for lack of star placement). So Aquaman started a countdown, because this is what we do with Frog.
“You have until I count down from five, Monkey, or I’m going to do it myself.”
If there is one thing my husband DOES NOT FUCK AROUND WITH, it’s a countdown. Your toy WILL get thrown away, you will NOT be going to the birthday party, etc. For reals, yo. He is a model of consistency in discipline. I am pretty hard core when it comes to following through on threats, but Aqua, he puts me to SHAME. Frog learned this the hard way long ago. Monkey, however, didn’t know what hit him.
So Aqua counted. “Five……four…..three….”
[no movement from Monkey, he’s playing hard to get—poor boy, he doesn’t KNOW that Aqua is hardcore. Run, Monkey, run!]
“….TWOOOOOO…..OOOOO….?”
[still nothing]
“One.” Aquaman put the menorah on the bookshelf.
Monkey LOST. IT. He was just about to walk over there, he said, he was ABOUT to do it! Aquaman did not relent.
I tells you whut, it is a brave man who will be this hardcore with someone else’s child. I was simultaneously horrified and impressed. He told me later it would have destroyed his credibility with his own kid if he softened on the countdown with the other kid. He has a point.
This was The Absolute Last Straw for Monkey, who in his mind had been not only mistreated (fake marshmallows, lukewarm cocoa, no carols, the wrong bell ornament, no star placement, no motherfucking POPCORN, hello?) but also sold a bill of goods regarding what a freaking Christmas Tree Trimming party was going to be overall. We did not live up to his expectations, which, MashugaMom told me later, had been partially created by her and included stringing popcorn, singing Christmas carols, and doing HOLIDAY CRAFTS that they could hang on the tree. I’m not sure what freaking crafts I could have gotten together in the 30 minutes’ warning I had that we were having a “Tree Trimming Party,” but I don’t blame MashugaMom for thinking so because
1) her expectations of Christmas are from wonderful, warm, fuzzy movies from the 1930's and
2) she herself could totally have pulled that off.
Monkey left in tears. We packed up his pumpkin bread and said goodbye as she went down the hallway with him and his baby brother, and we listened as the elevator doors opened and then closed, and his wailing went inside the metal box and down to the lobby. I felt kind of terrible that it hadn’t gone that well, that I hadn’t been, I don’t know, more loosey-goosey, or more fun. That I hadn’t had CRAFTS. That I hadn’t lived up to their idea of what Christmas should be.
That’s right: I felt guilty because my Christmas wasn’t good enough for the Jews.
Dude, if your Christmas can’t measure up to people WHO HAVE NEVER DONE CHRISTMAS, then how lame are you?
We did successfully have the boys put a few nonbreakable ornaments on the tree. There was a blissfully calm 15 minutes or so in there when we took ornaments out and commented on them, hung them up. We have an ornament for each year we’ve been together. Each year, we take out the ornament, read the year and talk about what we were doing and where we lived at that point. The snowman wearing sunglasses is from when we lived in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. The Snoopy pulling a tree on a sled is from when we lived on Western Avenue and Aqua dragged not a tree but a 12-foot-long, peacock-feather-patterned, gold-and-rust-and-burgundy-and-brown-and-purple couch up three flights of stairs to put in our living room. (I refused to participate.). The Grinch holding his dog Max (wearing the fake antler) was from the first Christmas we had our dog, Elvis. Each ornament has meaning. We tell the story of that meaning every year, usually just to eachother.
The ornaments since Frog was born are even better: they are all hand-carved by Aquaman, to commemorate whatever our son’s favorite toy was that year: a tiny replica of the shape-sorter toy, stacking rings, a wooden car. Each of these has its own carved, wooden box, made by Aquaman, woodburned with the year and Frog's initials, with a photo of him that year and a little note from us. When he is grown we will give him these for his own family tree.
Maybe.
If I can part with them.
Maybe we should make two of each.
She texted me later, after all the children were nestled in bed, to explain the situation with the hopped-up expectations and to apologize for her son “ruining” our tree trimming party. It wasn’t ruined, though, because we actually HAD no expectations. We wouldn’t even have made a “thing” out of it if not for them. I wouldn’t have thought of pumpkin bread or hot chocolate. We wouldn’t have put on Christmas music.
“Don’t worry,” I told her, “the Jews always try to ruin Jesus’ day.”
She replied that Monkey’s Hebrew name is Moses, so we should have been warned. I don’t really get that joke, which is illustrative of how disconnected I am from the religion of my birth. I did not know that Moses liked to ruin Christmas. Or that he was a partier who had to be kicked out of parties for revelling too much. What I know about Moses: old school and Old Testament, floated down the river in a basket, parted the Red Sea, took notes for God on the whole commandment thing. None of those things refer to our evening: there was no parting of hot cocoa, for instance. [editor's note: Masuga informs me that Moses was the leader of the Jews, and destroyed non-Jews' lives in order to lead Jews to freedom. Ah-ha.]
We went back and forth for awhile about who was more at fault (each of us taking the blame for miscommunication and excusing the other’s shortcomings, as mothers are wont to do). And then she texted, “I was amazed by the whole thing. The ornaments from childhood, the new ones each year since his birth, your lives together…I was fascinated. We have a shitload of Jewish holidays but nothing like what I saw tonight: unpacking the special ornaments, reminiscing about your lives together...it was very special.”
It wasn’t until receiving this message from my friend that I realized just how much of a Christmas tradition we really do have. We honor the past and celebrate it. We spend time together as a family. What we do is quiet and on a small scale, but our little nuclear family does indeed use this season as a way of appreciating our family and what we have been through and where we hope to go from here. Having our friends over to share in that tradition-we-didn’t-know-was-a-tradition held a mirror up to that and allowed us to really see it for the first time.
After they left, we settled into the quiet and the stillness. My little boy suggested we sit RIGHT UP UNDER the tree so we could see everything “up closed” and eat our pumpkin bread “like a Christmas picnic.” He asked me to read him one of the books I’d bought to teach him about Santa, The Christmas Magic. Frog snuggled up to me as I read, the glow of the twinkly tree lights reflected in his gorgeous green eyes. I felt a calm and a stillness that I haven’t felt since I gazed into those eyes each time he nursed as an infant.
Those same green eyes.
That same magic.
Silent Night.
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