So it’s quiet, is what you’re saying.
Real quiet.
And we should...be...praying or something. And while we’re doing that, gather this woman who’s never had intercourse but has an infant she claims is hers and just...tell everyone to go to sleep. Is. Is that right?
I mean. There’s also the part about the tenderness. The tenderness and mild...flavor of the baby. I can only assume that’s what you meant when you said, “so tender and mild” cause that’s how I describe chicken. I don’t understand any part of this.
So there’s. A man, is what you’re saying. That I should be wary of. I shouldn’t show any kind of emotion, you’re telling me, not negative ones anyway because I am being watched by this man who isn’t even in my vicinity but will be here soon for a visit. But he...hates sadness? So I should just stuff it down and keep smiling like the dude on the train told me to do? I don’t...did you just say when I’m SLEEPING? Sees me. Like with a baby monitor? And knows...just...instinctively...when I’m not sleeping. Like he feels it. Like a disturbance in the force. Can he tell me about the woman with the delicious baby, then? Cause I feel like he would have seen it.
So you’re wishing me well. Is what you’re saying. And that’s nice. I think the addition of “little” to the kind of Merry Christmas I’m supposed to have is...I don’t know...a bit pejorative, but ok. I also don’t see how ALL of our troubles are now just...eradicated by this “little” holiday. And why I want to spend all the years with people whose troubles are out of sight and out of mind, because that seems unhealthy and...wait. What do you mean IF the fates allow? THE FATES? As in the MOIRAI? You’ve invited the Spinner, the Allotter, and the Inflexible, respectively, to my allegedly LITTLE Christmas? What am I going to feed them? I can see these troubles VERY clearly. What are you even cryptically trying to do to this holiday? I can’t…
So there are bells. So many bells, you say. Please calm down. It’s all very fast. I don’t think you find them sweet because you sound panicked and I already told the last dude I’m not just throwing cares away when you’re clearly on speed or some - who are all these other people? Why are they repeating what you say? Is this a cult? Are you trying to initiate me? Merry merry merry merry stop it. Ding dong ding dong is not a song. It’s not...why is this so novel to you? That’s the sound bells make. Are you new?
It doesn’t make any sense. It never did. We were JEWISH. Why did we celebrate Christmas? I mean, I never asked. We asked for some Jewish holidays off from school and attended temple for all of two seconds, and I got teased plenty with “GI Jew, Real American Hebrew” by kids...which was pretty clever in hindsight...but I loved Christmas so I didn’t think it was worth investigating. People asked, my mom said she believed in the spirit of Christmas, and that was good enough for me.
So when this woman, who sounded like if Harvey Fierstein just woke up inside of a Brooklyn ashtray and thereby the Nature Valley Jewiest of Jews, pulled the car over while driving me home from college one break to say, “I have to tell you, I was born and raised Irish Catholic,” it didn’t make sense. She then told me that she converted when she married my father, which made even less sense. Why tell me if you converted? Why tell me at all? Why lie about this for my entire childhood, allowing us to be sufficiently tormented and confused and then clear it up with mud? I mean, I don’t mind being Jewish. It’s an important part of who I am, but what the actual HELL, Mom? You sound like that and guilt me into chores like making YOUR bed and emptying your ashtrays and you’re...CATHOLIC? Irish Catholic. Someone told me once that the difference between Jewish guilt and Catholic guilt is that Jews were the inventors and Catholics were the perfectors. I don’t know if that’s true, but both kinds of guilt are raging inside me continually so I don’t care.
So a manger, you say. In the winter. They see a whale pregnant woman and they say, “Go sleep it off in the cow feed.” Nono. Continue. That’s. The antithesis of kindness and sounds like something our current administration would...wait. Now he’s in the sky? I thought you said he was in a barn...trough. Thing. And you’re praying for his love? He’s a baby. He doesn’t even know you. What do you mean all the children go join him? In the manger? Or the sky. You know what, don’t answer that.
I mean, it wasn’t the only lie she told and it certainly wasn’t the biggest, but it still messes with me every holiday. Like I’m not really allowed to go all out for Christmas, and I don’t celebrate Hanukkah (I had to spell check it when I wrote this). But I celebrate Christmas and just shy away from angel tree toppers and I sometimes replace “Jesus Christ” with “Santa Claus” in some songs because I’m a child (“Here comes Jesus Christ, here comes Jesus Christ, right down Jesus Christ lane). I love It’s A Wonderful Life but wince when they get too religious. Not Clarence, though. He’s the best. But being Jewish is who I am, mother’s bloodline or no. I mean, maybe I’m just in it for the guilt and the jokes? But I know that’s not true. It’s my lineage and my family and my mother spent a good portion of the last part of her life running a kosher kitchen in a shelter where she previously lived. It makes sense in the whole scope of my family. Not any one part of it, but the whole of who we are. It fits.
(Sings)
I’ll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree
Christmas eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
I could take it apart, but it just makes more sense when you sing them. If you take them whole. You can get caught up in the idea of the holiday being magical enough to change things. You can believe in fairy tales and legends...even if they’re in your own family.
So you’re saying you let your grandmother walk home on Christmas eve. Like no one thought to drive her…?