Happy Holidays: A Short History of One Jew's Christmases in America
Melissa Levine

I Promise You, You're Happy: The Early Years
Is there any compensatory gesture so pathetic as the Chanukah bush? For a long time, I believed that the existence of such shamelessly assimilated shrubs was mythical. Then I saw one. I was eight, visiting the home of family friends, utterly unprepared for an encounter with the abominable. It came upon me suddenly, poking out from a corner of their living room—a short, skinny evergreen listing beneath the weight of a couple of yellow stars and a single strand of blue tinsel. Where were the Macabees? Where was the rock of ages? What a little, little shrub this was, and how desperate its prospects. It was neither magical nor beautiful; it had no pride and harbored no secrets. Instead, it was sorry. It was freakishly sorry. If this conifer had had a voice, it would have begged to be slain for its sins.

The Chanukah bush: Even at eight, I understood that it was worse than nothing.

Perhaps every Jewish child living in a largely Christian country experiences Christmas envy. Jewish parents are generally on guard against this phenomenon; it taps into their guilt over assimilation and their ancient, diaspora-related sorrow. Attempts to still the cries of jealousy include Suffocation by Presents ("Shut up and open this"), Plangent Rationalization ("Eight nights instead of one lousy day!") and Apologetic Capitulation ("Just because we have a Christmas tree doesn't mean we celebrate Christmas"). These preemptive strikes may work in some cases; what the first two (no trees for the Levines) did in mine was induce guilt.

Of course I was envious of Christmas. Who wouldn't be? Chanukah had a quiet kind of loveliness—flickering lights, oily foods, something in the vicinity of eight or nine miracles—but its mythology couldn't hold a candle to Santa's flaming red suit. So a tiny band of courageous Jews once defeated an entire army of Syrians: How many years ago was that? Santa was here, Santa was now; Santa was alive and kicking. Santa, the ultimate codependent, was a compulsive giver of gifts. He was also the very close associate of nine flying reindeer—sleek, glorious beasts with pointy toes and steamy nostrils. I wanted to feel the thunder of their hooves against my roof. Have you seen those animals? Those are some beautiful animals.

Whereas the Jews, what did the Jews have for pets? Camels? Is there any animal with a face so ridiculous as a camel?

I loved Christmas, I wanted Christmas: I was not supposed to love or want Christmas. I was such a lucky child, with so much more than other children. Why was it so hard for me to remember that? ("Young lady, not everybody gets an electric blanket for the fourth night and a Strawberry Shortcake sleeping bag for the fifth." Not to mention the entire paycheck my mother squandered on a pair of Esprit pants and a matching flannel shirt, which, when worn together, were supposed to make me popular.)

My mother, like Santa, was also a compulsive giver of gifts, but she wasn't fat or magical. In fact, one year during Chanukah, my brother and I spent a great deal of time fidgeting anxiously in the living room, waiting for her to find our presents. She couldn't remember where she had hidden them. Santa delivered the goods while you were sleeping and disappeared without a trace; my mother crashed around the house like a frantic bird, tearing through closets and assuring us that any minute she would locate the goods.

Which, one night, were fire alarms.

So You Say You Want a Resurrection: The Middle Years
This was all happening in an affluent suburb of Washington, D.C.: Potomac, Maryland, the home of media maverick Darren Star, who created Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place. Darren Star and I went to the same high school.

When I turned fourteen, I took an after-school job at a pet store in a neighboring suburb. Among the mostly stoned, lackadaisical staff (comprising disaffected youths who later became my close friends), I quickly rose to a position of power as store decorator. I made signs, arranged displays, and hung ornaments for Christmas. I draped wreaths and strands of gold stars liberally on bird cages. I fastened red ribbons around large, rawhide dog bones. This felt right. I had always wanted to decorate for Christmas; I had always believed I could.

At the staff Christmas party, the presents I gave surpassed those of every other employee in thoughtfulness and labor intensity. I baked; I painted; I composed poems. I dressed as an elf. I was not above giving personalized, hand-decorated t-shirts to people I barely knew. (Desperation, as well as competitive gift giving, is a Levine family staple.) These efforts were rewarded with charitable applause, the Christmas spirit hard at work.

During one of these blurry high school holiday seasons (so much of high school, thank God, is now a blur), I asked my mother to take me to Midnight Mass at the National Cathedral. I had heard that the ceremony was gorgeous; I hoped to be buffeted between happy, openhearted Christian people and made warm and whole by their Christmas cheer. In a grand spirit of tolerance (or something), my mother complied, and at eleven o'clock on Christmas Eve we bundled up and headed downtown. My father was asleep on the couch.

Wisconsin Avenue was deserted, and we sped through the suburbs and crossed into the city. Just inside the city limits, along a residential stretch of road, a car was stopped along the shoulder, its hood raised. A man stood alongside, waiting.

"He must be cold," I worried.

My mother glanced over. "We could stop," she said.

"Do you think we should? We might be late for mass."

"Well," she sighed, "it is Christmas Eve."

"Yes," I said, nearly breaking out in song, "it is Christmas Eve!"

We slowed, pulled over to the shoulder and backed up. My mother stopped the car and got out.

"Need any help?" she asked, approaching slowly.

"That's all right," he said. "Already taken care of."

"You sure about that?"

"Hundred percent."

She got back in. "He doesn't need any help," she said, starting the car.

"Oh," I said. How could he not need help? Maybe he knew we were Jews.

We got to the cathedral well before midnight, but everybody else—happy, ruddy people, with sparkling, Christmasy eyes—was leaving. Midnight Mass was over; it had begun at nine o'clock. Hadn't we seen it on television?

We hadn't. My father was too busy watching Soul Train.

Upward Mobility: Larger Houses, Larger Christians
Which is not to say that I did not have a sense of myself as a Jew. I went to Hebrew school; I became a Bat Mitzvah; I felt guilty on the High Holidays. I understood that my cultural heritage was characterized principally by text study and persecution, two traditions I upheld in college by learning to deconstruct literature and continuing to feel like a victim.

When I was a sophomore, my parents moved into a house that was so large they could not occupy it themselves. They announced to my brother, who was living at home while he went to law school, that they were going to rent out the basement apartment. He was horrified. Rapidly, with the speed and drive of a man obsessed, he assembled a booklet entitled "Renting to Non-Jews: A Guide," which was illustrated with stick-figure cartoons and included level-headed warnings such as What To Do When the Renters Park Their Gigantic Cross in Your Driveway (You say, "You cannot park your gigantic cross in our driveway."). My favorite panel illustrated an altercation between our father and the renters in which our father accuses the renters of having killed our shrubs with their gigantic cross. "You killed our rhododendron," my father says. The renters' faces—spherical squiggles—are inscrutable. "You killed Christ," they reply.

My brother is a tall, broad, gentle guy with a biting wit. His connection to Judaism is tenuous, but he draws some definitive lines between himself and any form of Christianity. These lines are invisible until crossed. Several years ago, when we were both home for the holidays, we did a lot of late-night dog walking. (In my family, it is necessary to form small factions, flee the house and complain about the absent members on a regular basis.) Across the street from my parents, in a still larger house, lives a family which is Catholic enough to display a sculpture of Mary in the yard—the white, chalky kind, where she is standing with open hands in what looks to be a bathtub turned on its side.

At Christmas, this family erects a sizeable Nativity Scene, a wooden manger occupied by plastic figures of Joseph, Mary, Jesus, the wise men, and some sheep—all of whom, as is appropriate for the holy, are lit from within. For several nights, my brother and I passed the scene without saying very much; my parents' basset hound is a tugger, and in addition to defecating in the wrong yards and chewing on pieces of flattened garbage he likes to dig in his heels and pull us in the opposite direction. Finally, one night I looked very closely at the creche, and it seemed to me to be something offensive, something I shouldn't have to see—at the very least, something in poor taste.

"There's Christ," I said, by way of acknowledgment.
My brother looked over at the blinking lights. "Let's kill him."

Pilgrimage to Israel: The Self-Righteous Years
Halfway through college, at a time when many people lament the rapid passing of time and vow to spend their final two years wisely and well, I decided to go to Israel. I didn't understand very much of what had happened to me at college; I only knew that I had to get the hell out of there.

Something to know about Israel is that no matter where you go, you are surrounded by Jews. There are Jews on the streets and Jews in the stores, Jews on the buses and Jews in the buildings. If you are Jewish, these people will know the same stories as you, celebrate the same holidays, and (this is disturbing) speak in the same tone of voice as your mother. These astounding similarities can make you feel as though you have been alienated from your true self for a very long time and have only now come home where you belong.

Rosh Hashana is a national holiday. Yom Kippur is a national holiday. Tubishvat is a national holiday. Christmas? In Bethlehem I understand they do something about Christmas. In Jerusalem, nada. Klum. Shum d'var.

On the night of December 24th, I had to be reminded that it was Christmas Eve. In an astounding coincidence, my friends and I had gone out for Chinese food. (It is an American Jewish ritual to eat Chinese food on Christmas Eve, because many of us love Chinese food and because the Chinese, God bless them, do not celebrate Christmas either.) After filling up on Mushu Chicken, Mushu Mushroom and Mushu Neither Shrimp Nor Pork, we strolled lazily through the city, enjoying the night.

"Isn't it wonderful," I mused, sighing the sigh of the formerly oppressed, "to not have to see a single Christmas decoration?"

My friends nodded and cooed agreement. "It is so wonderful," they said. I felt warm and comfortable. We were Jewish peas in a Jewish pod. We were young; we were alike; we were walking through the streets of our most ancient and holy city. It was so easy to forget that just the day before we'd had to wait an hour before entering the vegetable market while the Israeli police defused a bomb.

Chanukah in Jerusalem was as Chanukah was meant to be: quiet, lovely, gift-free. In the Orthodox neighborhood where I attended classes, nearly every window of every apartment in every building was lit with flickering lights. Many of the Israelis preferred oil lamps to candles, and it made for a deep, rich flame—when multiplied by the hundreds, a glorious sight. One night, while riding a bus up the side of one of Jerusalem's mountains, I was so moved that I had to write my parents a letter describing it. I had to convey the profundity of the experience, my ecstatic sense of connection; I had to help them comprehend the changes that were being wrought within me.

This letter, which my mother managed to intercept, was liberally paraphrased for my brother and father.

"You understand," she later explained. "I mean at that point you had already sent so many letters. They had more than enough grist for the mill."

Post-Israel Recidivism: The Orgy of Giving
During my final two years of college, my mother decided to make the winter holidays even more appealing by planning "Chanukah" parties. As the real Chanukah invariably coincided with final exams, during which I had to remain at school, these parties did not take place during the holiday but sometime after—somewhere around, say, December 25. For the first party, my mother invited my aunt, who lives in Virginia, prepared potato latkes and suggested that we do a little gift exchange.

Which is what we did. The first year.

The second year the party was preceded by a frenzy akin to nuclear arms escalation. My aunt heard that my mother had bought everybody at least two presents, so she thought she'd do the same; my brother began to promise that his gifts would be superior if not in quantity than in quality to those of everyone else; in one explosive visit to Price Club my father managed to supersede all previous reports of dollar totals. Back in my little apartment in University City, I had resolved to spend no more than forty dollars on each person. I was a graduate student with limited means, most of which I intended to spend on my girlfriend—a bona fide Christian—about whom my family knew nothing. (Whether I would tell them about her before or after the Orgy of Giving was an issue.)

By the time I flew home, the purchasing was truly out of hand. My mother was making regular late-night visits to the malls, whisking through bins of sweaters and gadgets. "I need something else for your brother," she kept saying, though his pile (hidden in the cedar closet) was already the size of a small burial mound. "I need something that will solve his problems and make him happy."

On the day of the party, when we were preparing the "Chanukah" meal, my mother began to worry over how we would present each other with the gifts.

"Where will we put them?" she wondered.

"What do you mean, 'Where will we put them?'" I flipped a latke. "We'll just bring them to the table."

"Oh," she said, giggling guiltily. "I was sort of hoping we could pile them all in one place."

"All in one place?" I asked. "Like under a tree?"

What happened was more like armageddon than Christmas. The four of us disappeared into different corners of the house—my aunt went to her car—and returned with so many packages that it seemed we were shoring ourselves up against a flood. In pictures of this event, the members of my family—decent-sized people—are cowed by piles and piles of merchandise. We are sticking our heads out from behind shopping bags like worried mice.

It took more than two hours to complete the exchanges, and when all was said and done I had in front of me a pile of no fewer than twenty-two gifts. Which amounted to (not that I counted) visibly fewer than my brother.

Happy Holidays: Yours and Mine
That was two years ago. Last year, I didn't go home for the winter holidays—I went to Florida—and this year I will be in San Francisco, where (so sorry, dear reader!) I am about to take up residence.

I no longer love Christmas. I certainly don't want to celebrate it. But I don't dislike it, either, and whereas it has become common to lament the tasteless commercialization of the holiday, for me the commercialization pretty much is the holiday—the decorations, the music, the mobbed stores. The gingerbread excess of these things is annoying, but their presence is festive; they remind me of vacation, and pleasantly cold weather, and eating lots of good, warm food with people I like and love.

What I say to other people, and what I want other people to say to me, is "Happy Holidays"—for these are surely holidays, these days in which we work less and eat more and feel inclined to give each other things. And while I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of receiving gifts at this time of year, my guilt is not so pervasive as to prevent me from accepting them. I assure you, oh friend and fellow reveler, if you wish to give me something, together we can finesse it so it works. We can call it a Token of Appreciation, a Just a Little Something for Someone Special—hell, we can call it a Going Away Present. Just don't wrap it in red and green.