Christmas Memories

Jewish parents like mine, raising kids in an overwhelmingly Christian community, had an obvious problem starting in early December: Christmas was everywhere. Even in school, teachers decorated bulletin boards and wore festive holiday sweaters. Of course, the all-important topic among children was what would Santa bring.

My own parents worried, especially when we were in preschool, about what to do with the Christmas dilemma. If they managed to convince me that there was no Santa, they knew that I would do whatever I could to convince others that Santa was a hoax. And perhaps they were concerned about self-esteem — what would other children make of us? Difference, during the 1950s, was hard to celebrate. And then, from a child’s perspective came the question, did toy man ignore us because we were somehow undeserving?

In any case, for a year or two at least, I experienced the pleasure, the thrill really, of a tree with twinkling lights under which, on Christmas morning, we found gifts—lots of gifts. I shared the joy with my preschool peers.

Somewhere around first grade, a few rumors began to bubble up: Was Santa Claus real? Not surprisingly, Wendy Saul, girl detective, had a plan to get to the bottom of the mystery. Our staircase—with its perfectly positioned landing—looked directly down on the living room and the tree. On one fateful Christmas eve, I sneaked down to my perch, waited quietly, and caught the parental culprits, putting out the new bicycle of my dreams, complete with a red ribbon, under our tree.

“I caught you. I caught you!” I cried, delighted to show my cleverness.

“Oh good,” my parents happily replied, “now you know that there is no Santa and that we are Jewish. Jews, don’t believe in all this stuff.”

I am sure my folks were indeed relieved, given that the place where our tree stood, faced the chair and side table where my grandfather said his morning prayers and looked with utter disgust at their goyishness.

Ironically, my parents always denied this story until, as a teenager, I found the strings of lights in an unused closet.

A generation later, my husband and I were raising our own children in Catonsville, MD, the white-bread town the Berrigans chose for their Viet Nam protest (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catonsville_Nine). Although there were a few children of “mixed marriages” in the elementary school, my friend Linda and I—neither of whom gave into the Christmas tree solution—complained often and clearly to teachers and the principal about the lack of appreciation for difference and diversity in the school, the dominating presence of Christmas being a prime example. To ameliorate our concerns, they invited in a chassidic dance team who jumped around, payess bouncing, black coats flapping, to offer some Chanukah songs.

“No, no, no”—this is not definitely what we wanted, Linda and I complained. And so, the holiday policy committee was born. Linda and I were paired with a few evangelicals who were distressed about Halloween and a former teacher who was assigned to take notes.

It turned out that the Evangelicals were not just upset about Halloween, but they also hated the Christ-less Christmas. After a number of meetings, we all agreed that one day for holiday decorations including Christmas talk and Christmas mimeos was enough and that Halloween costumes would all focus on characters from books in the school library.

We wrote up our report and presented it to the principal, who admittedly was surprised that we could agree on anything. I clearly recall his face as he began to absorb our recommendations.

Finally he turned our paper over in dismay. “Are you guys crazy? What’s next, you want to shoot the Easter bunny?”

All of us—insiders and those on the periphery— swim in the wake of Christmas memories.