Well, Xmas is over. Thank. Goodness. We didn't put on the Xmas dinner this year. My brave, brave sister-in-law A., who lives upstairs from us, took on that task. All we did to help out was contribute a turkey/stuffing, sweet potato pies, and potato latkes. We had our apartment cleaned out all nice-nice in case additional seating capacity was required, but everyone wound up hanging out & eating upstairs. A. was absolutely exhausted by the end. I, on the other hand, had gotten everything I needed to do done on time and had gone to sleep at 9:30 PM on Xmas eve. So I was feeling OK compared to pretty much every other adult in the house.
The difference is that I am Jewish. My babygirl and I are the only Jews in the house. My husband considers himself atheist, but he was born Catholic and still celebrates Xmas, albeit in an entirely secular fashion. Because hubby celebrates it, and because we are sort of the senior adults in the family in our state, I've wound up busting my butt to put on Xmas dinner for many, many years. I think I'm done with that now. IT'S NOT MY HOLIDAY, after all.
The problem is that, while I was born Jewish, I never received any kind of Jewish education or indoctrination. Traditionally, it is the mother who is responsible for making sure the kids get the proper Jewish education. My mother passed away when I was six months old, leaving me with my entirely lapsed Jewish dad to whom it never occurred that I might like to know what it means to be a Jew aside from the fact that every other Jew knows me for one of their own the minute they set eyes on my face. I have felt that ignorance keenly throughout my life. As it was, growing up Jewish mostly meant that I didn't get to receive chocolate eggs on Easter or presents on Xmas. So it was mostly a matter of not getting the good stuff that all the other kids got, without any of the benefits that come of growing up in a faith.
I am pretty up-to-date on the Passover rituals and lore, only because I've gone to seder at my Jewish best friend's parents' home for the past 15 or so years. But I wanted to celebrate Chanukah this year on a more accurate level than I had in the last few years, when I simply lighted my menorah in the front window with no ceremony. So I went online and Googled a Chanukah service, sections of which I selected as being easily understood, not in Hebrew, and not having melodies of which I am unaware. And come sundown, when everyone else was still upstairs chowing down, I brought my dad and my daughter downstairs to light the first candle. I read my ridiculously abbreviated version of the Chanukah service while babygirl desperately tore at the front of my shirt giving that frantic plaintive booby-wanting cry and my dad frowned in that particular hard-of-hearing way he's developed over the past ten years. Pathetic, really, but still a step forward from last year. Last night I lit the second candle while babygirl fought with me to grab the menorah with its pretty flickering lights off the windowsill. Perhaps next year she'll be able to comprehend the point of the whole exercise on some more substantive level. I feel heavily on my shoulders the weight of my responsibility as a Jewish mother to make sure my Jewish daughter knows what it means to be Jewish, and this feels like one place to make that start - in a teacher-one-step-ahead-of-student kind of way.
For the first time in many years, I was mostly an observer of the American traditional Xmas experience. Oh, I mean, I bought presents for all of the kids, but I picked out a small neighborhood toy store with mostly old-world style toys (think wood, not plastic) and did all my shopping there, in one fell swoop, and even let them gift-wrap the goodies. But there are currently four children living in my house, and I saw what the holidays were - and did - to them. Let's call these kids Hyperactive Boy (HB), the Holy Terror (HT; those of you who read my old blog are familiar with her), my babygirl, and the 6-month-old L'il Cherub Boy (LCB). HB and HT are Babymama's kids.
The kids received presents from multiple, multiple sources. First, HB and HT got presents at school from area high schools that held charity events to buy toys for kids in underprivileged areas. Then, they got presents from Babymama's boyfriend. Then from Babymama's mother. All of these presents were opened BEFORE Xmas. There were enough of them, total, to constitute a complete Xmas with no more added in.
Then Xmas itself rolled around. There were presents for all the kids from Babymama, me & hubby, my mother-in-law in New Mexico, brother-in-law T. and his wife A., the DCYF case worker involved in Babymama's case (a surprising source of extreme generosity), and a dozen other random people. The presents under T. & A.'s tree fanned out to consume fully half the living room floor.
Then, Xmas evening rolled around and A.'s entire family brought in more presents, and once again half the floor was consumed. People, this was like the third wave of Xmas presents. These kids got enough presents to constitute three, full, generous Xmases in any other, less fortunate household. Ultimately, babygirl got the least presents of all by virtue of not having two sides of a family to bestow commercially sanctioned blessings, and still her crib (still not used for sleeping!) is filled with Xmas booty.
Let's talk for a minute now about the impact all of this had on the kids. Babygirl and LCB, being babies, really had no clue what was going on - they played with wrapping paper and demanded early, long naps. But HB and HT? Their behavior actually deteriorated at light speed from Friday the 22nd through Xmas night. I don't know if it was too much anticipation or overstimulation or stress bleeding through from the adults, but by Xmas eve night both of them were throwing full-out temper tantrums on the floor, side by side on the floor of Babymama's room, four fists and four feet pounding on the floor. And when it came time to open presents (again, and again, and again), they had no time to appreciate any one gift. They'd open one, exclaim "Cool!" or "Lookit!" and then fling it aside to open the next one. The penultimate moment, the one for which they'd been waiting, was the moment of acquisition - the moment at which a toy passed from "not-mine" to "mine" status. That moment having passed, none of those toys will ever give the same pleasure to either of them they they did, fleetingly, then.
I found the whole thing, the way it changed these children's personalities, to be sickening.
I want in the worst way for that not to be my daughter's ongoing holiday experience. I cannot prevent her from participating in Xmas, because her father and his whole family participates. But I want to shield her from the disgusting greedy commercial acquisitiveness which the American holiday season instills in goyish children. So I will continue to observe Chanukah, minor Jewish holiday that it is, in my own small way with my babygirl so that she knows that not everyone is like that. And I will ask hubby's relatives to respect my daughter's Jewishness by not blitzing her with excessive gifts. (Maybe if they still do so, I will divide the gifts into eight and distribute them to her over the eight nights of Chanukah?)
For my daughter's sake, I must commit myself to furthering my own Jewish education. Maybe I will find an ultra-reform congregation to join which will allow me and babygirl to take religious classes together, maybe even become bat mitzvah together (I never had even that rite of passage). If she wants to choose Catholicism as an adult, I will respect her choice. But in our culture, nobody need make any special effort to make sure she knows what it means to be Catholic. Come hell or high water, I will make it my mission to allow her to learn what it means to be Jewish, so at least when the time comes she can make an educated decision.
(Boy, this came out long and rambling, and not at all what I thought it would be like. That's the funny thing about blogging - my writing has a will and a mind of its own.)
