Have You No Shame? And Other Regrettable Stories

A Very Goysiche Christmas: Part 2

The feast of Hanukah, a pleasant, undemanding winter festival celebrating one of the precious few times in our history that we were not horribly, brutally massacred or victimized is actually a relatively minor holiday.  This is not terribly surprising. The Jews, after all, are a people who have chosen to observe our most important holiday by denying ourselves food and drink while standing in synagogue for hours listening to the rabbi recite the grisly martyrology of our people—those that were burned in the ovens or sent to the gas, those that were flayed by the Romans and crushed by the Greeks, murdered by peasants and tortured by priests.  It’s all very festive, particularly when punctuated by the frequent punches to the breast, that we are expected to administer in penance, leaving a knuckle-shaped black and blue mark just above the bra.

“Don’t hit yourself so hard there, honey,” my grandmother would say.  “What could you have done so wrong?”

“Let her hit herself,” my mother chimed in.  “She’ll save up for next year.”

It was one of the great disappointments of my grandmother’s life to be born halakhically+ ineligible for participation in the cheerier festivals celebrated by the rest of the world.  The Christmas season left her especially torn.  While never one to adhere too closely to the letter of the law—cheeseburgers were served proudly in her home, right under the “I Keep a Kosher Kitchen” needlepoint, an acknowledged celebration of Christmas would be too much, even for her.  As the saying goes: “shrimp may be treyf, but pork is anti-Semitic.”

But she did her best anyway. A curious grandchild might explore a downstairs closet—an expedition fraught with danger, as a small child could easily be crushed by the avalanche of unused yarn—to find racks heaped with rolls of smooth, shining wrapping-paper; crisp plaids in red and green, frolicking teams of sparkling reindeer, silver wreaths studded with pearlized poinsettias, waiting to adorn the gifts she distributed.  Every Gentile of her acquaintance—area merchants, the nurses at the Home, my aunt—would receive the gifts she made: marble cakes and fruitcakes; Christmas needlepoints; miniature ceramic trees, glazed by hadnand outfitted with working fairy lights no bigger than a baby’s fingertip.  Not to be outdone in holiday spirit by the festive Santa sweaters and their Baby Jesus shoelaces one spotted on ladies about town, my grandmother was a vision in blue and gold and silver, festooned with glittering menorahs and Stars of David.  Sparkling dreidels danced at her ears, strings of smiling latkes marched about her hips.  Her chest streaked with puff paint and shoulders with lame, she was a beacon unto her people, a beam of strength and light, like Deborah, like Judith.  Grandma.  Many women have done valiantly, but you surpass them all. 

Hanukah at Grandma’s typically occurred near the end of the holiday and we waited for it with mounting excitement.  After a few nights of Hanukah at home, the interminable wait for my father to arrive, then waiting again for him to shower and change (to my knowledge, he is the only person in the Omaha area to ride his bike home from work in the middle of December) after the initial excitement of presents had given way to socks and underwear and a fifth copy of Herschel and the Hanukah Goblins+, after my mother and father looked at the sweaters they had bought for each other and immediately requested a gift receipt, it was time at last for…

“The Festival of Greed!” my father cries, as we pulled into my grandparents’ driveway.  Above us, the twin flags of the United States and Israel flutter majestically in the winter wind, framing a collection of stained-glass clowns in various states of leering.  Streamers of blue and white snake around the drainpipe, and the garage door boasted brightly colored paper cutouts—dreidels, menorahs, bags of money;+ all the symbols of our people. 

“The Festival of Greed,” my father repeats, more quietly.

“Did she really put a yellow Star of Davidon the garage door?” asks my mother.