ChristmaHannuk . . . ah screw it.

By Misty Nuckolls

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

ChristmaHannuka, and Other Wonders

Dammit, but I am exhausted, and “Christmas” isn’t even over yet; we’ve at least two more dinner/gift exchange events to drag ourselves to.

One thing I never counted on was the ordeal of “The Holidays” while belonging to both large and blended families, not to mention an inter-faith one. When I was a kid, Christmas was three days long---Christmas Eve with my mom and dad, Christmas morning with my dad’s side of the family, and the Saturday following with my mom’s side.

I thought *that* was a hell of a lot of trouble, even as a child. As a parent, though, married into this family, we have: Christmas Eve with Trey’s mom’s side of the family, Christmas morning with Trey’s mom, her husband, and his kids and grandkids, the Saturday after with my mom’s side of the family, a floating Christmas dinner with Trey’s dad and his new wife (can’t really call her “stepmom” since they were married after Trey was out of college), Christmas in January with my parents, and the pop-up dinners hosted by his cousins who are also trying to juggle schedules with their spouses’ families but don’t want to miss out on their other families, too.

So far we’ve gone to 3 “Christmases”, with another to go tomorrow night, and one more with my parents whenever the hell we get around to it. Not counting the Pizza Shuttle party we attended this evening.

Plus, now we have Hannuka thrown in. Thank G-d it was several weeks before Christmas this year.

There’s a lot of debate about/among dual-faith families and how they should, and do, celebrate the two holidays. The fact that my husband is an agnostic who could really care less as long as I allow our children the freedom to think about objectively and then choose their faith, or lack of, when they reach an age where they are capable of doing so, simplifies matters somewhat. He comes from a large Catholic family, though, so although there aren’t any battles on the immediate homefront, they do come up when we get into the extended family circle.

For my daughter and me, Hannuka is the religious holiday, a relatively minor one in the Jewish calendar, although dear to my heart because it commemorates both the mainstream tradition of one kick-ass military victory (and, secondary in my books, a miracle that just happened to follow it), as well as the lesser-known apocryphal story of Judith’s single-handed victory over Holofernes and his army (long story short—city besieged, nobody making any headway, a pretty young widow gets fed up with watching children starving to death and makes her way to the enemy general’s tent armed with nothing but some very salty cheese and an assload of strong wine. Plying the general with cheese and wine and feminine wiles, she waits ‘till he passes out drunk, beheads him, then marches back into her city with his head to be stuck on a pike, pretty much going, “There, you pussies who call yourselves soldiers, how freaking hard was *that*?” And yes, that is as short a summary as I can devise.).

This year was the first that we really celebrated it. We lit the menorah, we said the prayers, and the two of us cherished our newly-rediscovered tradition more than I can express. Every evening at dusk, Penny started pestering me about the menorah (although, kind of eerily, the first night she said, “Mommy, can we make the miracle?” Which is strange because I hadn’t begun to tell her the stories of Hannuka, or even taught her the word “miracle” that I can remember), and she delighted in learning the Hebrew prayers right alongside me.

And I love this newly-re-discovered holiday of ours, the peace of it, the quietness, the simplicity of lighting candles exactly like our ancestresses have done for millennia. It is calm, it is not wrapped up in gaudy paper and blinking electric lights and credit card bills. It is a simple, profound tradition of small flames growing in number each night, of prayers we both stumble through but feel the meaning of someplace deep and still. Most of all, it is quiet. Maybe that’s why I’m enjoying it so much, here in the midst of everything screaming “Buy this or your children won’t love you anymore!” I light the candles, we speak words in a language that is both strange and familiar, I tell her stories of enemies defeated by courage and feminine wit, and the evening progresses in peace and candlelight and the echoes of words spoken by generations of women and men since before anyone of our lineage even suspected that the place where we stand even existed.

And then comes Christmas.

Penny will have both, of course. She lives in a culture, and is surrounded by a large and loving and generous family, for which Christmas is a central, if not *the* central, holiday of their calendar. I won’t have her feeling like an outsider in her own family by denying her the delights of said blinking lights and gaudy paper and the acts of giving and receiving in the spirit of delighting both giver and receiver. So Christmas, for her, will be a cultural holiday, a secular holiday, like Halloween or Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July. She gets Christmas presents, and stories of Santa (who, as we tell her, gives presents to good girls and boys, and not believing in the divinity of Jesus doesn’t make her any less of a “good girl”, and although I know she’s too young to grasp that now, it will armor her in later years against the questions posed by her cousins and peers as to why a Jew gets presents from Santa), and when we have a home large enough to accommodate one, a Christmas tree adorned with ornaments that have been passed down for generations on both sides of her family. And no, I won’t feel like a hypocrite for putting a Christmas tree in my Jewish home, because Christmas trees are no more Christian than fireworks on the 4th of July or turkey on Thanksgiving.

But I have to admit, it’s going to be more of a challenge when she gets old enough to realize that most of her family is celebrating this holiday as Jesus’ Birthday, when I’m raising her to believe that Jesus was just one more rabbi, wiser than many, perhaps, but not the be-all and end-all of creation that her cousins and grandparents and aunts are telling her he was. Her great-grandfather already winces in pain when she sets up the candles of her tiny tea set, pretends to light them, then cups her hands over her eyes and says, “Baruch Atah Adonai Elohainu”, and I can see the glimmer of behind-my-back indoctrination being birthed in his eyes. Bad enough that her grandmother baptized her in the name of Christ Almighty in the kitchen sink because both Trey and I were dead-set against standing before G-d in any form and lying to Him by saying we were going to raise her as a good Catholic just to give the family occasion to dress up and see her in a frilly white dress; the confusion that this particular holiday will bring her in the years to come is already making me anxious.

But that will come in its own time, and I’ll deal with it when it does. For now, I’m just glad that Christmas in all its forms is almost over, for this year. It will still be weeks before I’ve found a place for all the toys she’s been showered with, and days before she gets back to a normal schedule not filled to bursting with travel and presents and parties and chocolate cookies, but I’m breathing a deep sigh of relief that this season of confusion and commercialism and running around like a crazy mad-woman to make sure that she isn’t deprived of even one family tradition is almost over.

My favorite carol right about now is the one that goes, “Christmas comes but once a year . . .”

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Posted by synapsis (anonymous) on December 26, 2007 at 1:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Penny is very lucky to have such a great mom and dad. Hope to run into you all sometime soon.

Merry chrismakwannuka to you and yours.

Posted by DOTDOT (anonymous) on December 26, 2007 at 2:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I have been learning new things this christmas. For instance, I had no clue before yesterday what a Mobile Devastator was, much less how to put one together. And how to live life with Miley Cyrus smiling out from every goddamn poster and calendar in the house.

Posted by ladylaw (Terry Bush) on December 26, 2007 at 2:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)

MY new Christmas song (that won't leave my head) is courtesy of Zim the Invader - "Bow Down. Bown Down, Before the power of Santa. Or be Crushed. Be Crushed. By....my jolly boots of doom!"

I am proud of Penny, and you. The Hebrew prayers and Jewish holidays are wonderful. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just not fully informed!

Posted by alm77 (anonymous) on December 27, 2007 at 12:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)

DOTDOT, I'm right there with you. We drew the line at posters. But my mom always has her ways, so my 9 year old got Hannah Montana *socks* from grandma!! At least its not Bratz... Miley keeps her clothes on.

Posted by mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) on December 28, 2007 at 9:06 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Ack! Hannah Montana!!! Just the thought of Billy Ray Cyrus' "one less famous parent and I'd be on the pageant circuit right now" spawn in my home in *any* form makes me want to rip out my eyeballs.

Of course, trying to dictate Penny's tastes has its consequences. Just yesterday, she said, "WonderPets is stupid. Mommy is stupid, too, just like WonderPets."

ChristmaHannuk . . . ah screw it.

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