by Jill Smokler
The beauty of Hanukkah is that there is always tomorrow. The next night, I spent more time studying my list and was more careful when selecting my package. Again I was wrong. That night it was a set of Little House on the Prairie books. A great gift for sure, but where was that Grease cartridge? How could I be making such foolish mistakes after such careful and thoughtful planning? Night after night, I was sure I had plucked the Grease sound track from the pile, and night after night I was stunned when I unwrapped something that wasn’t the Grease sound track. I got wonderful presents, but I was stymied.
Finally, the eighth night of Hanukkah arrived. This was it: the last night. Tonight’s gift had to be the Grease sound track. I had waited an extra week, but at least I knew I would finally get to hear the sweet sounds of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. I could barely contain myself as the day wore on. We said our prayers and lit our candles, all the while the tune to “Summer Nights” playing in my head. My parents handed me my last package. I tore off the wrapping paper with a huge smile on my face. I had already started yelling an excited thank-you before I looked down and saw that I was holding a box of Nilla Wafers.
What happened after that is not my proudest moment as a child. Even now, thirty-five years later, I’m embarrassed to write about it. I pitched the brattiest of bratty fits.
“Cookies?!” I sputtered, almost too upset to speak. “Who gets cookies for Hanukkah?!”
“I’m sure lots of children would love to receive a whole box of cookies,” my mom said.
“But these aren’t even the kind of cookies I like to eat. These are Daddy’s favorite cookies!” I yelled. “Here, you can have them,” I said, putting the box of cookies down in front of my father before I stormed off to my bedroom and slammed the door.
I sat in the middle of my room trying to figure out how I could have been so wrong about getting the Grease sound track. A few minutes later Dad knocked and entered my room holding the box of Nilla Wafers.
“Don’t you want any of your cookies?” he asked, holding out the box.
“No! I don’t like those cookies. You can have them all,” I said dejectedly.
Dad held the box out to me. “Why don’t you open the box for me?”
“You’re already holding the box. You can open it for yourself,” I said.
“Yes, but it’s your Hanukkah present, so you should really offer the cookies to me,” he said, shaking the box in front of me.
I could see he wasn’t going to leave me alone to sulk in peace until I gave him a cookie. Reluctantly, I took the box and opened it. As I was passing the box back to him, I saw that it didn’t contain cookies; it contained the Grease sound track! A huge smile spread across my bratty little face. I jumped up and hugged my dad.
“Next time, do a better job of rewrapping your presents,” he said, laughing as he walked away.
I learned two things that year: never ruin my surprises and always fold the corners neatly when wrapping a present.
36
THE KID WHO RUINED CHRISTMAS
by Jill Smokler
Last year, I waited in line at Target behind a woman buying a Santa costume, reindeer footprints, fake snow, and a cookie plate to feed the fictitious character. “My nine-year-old still believes,” she giddily told the cashier.
Having an almost-nine-year-old myself, I was pretty incredulous that any kid that age still bought the whole Santa thing. If she wanted to put forth all that effort, more power to her . . . but I’ve never been so glad to be Jewish in my life.
I mean, there’s no way I’d be up for all of the work that you Christmas-celebrating parents have to put forth. You must successfully convince your children that an overweight man, carted by twelve reindeer in the sky, delivered their presents via the chimney while they were sleeping. I have friends who leave faux evidence of reindeer poop or have family come dressed as Santa so they have photographic proof of the visit. Personally, I want some credit for the gifts, since I’m the one who shopped for them, bought them, and wrapped them. But bravo to you folks who go the whole nine yards.
You know who else deserves a bravo? The children belonging to those of us who don’t celebrate Christmas. It turns out, they are the true heroes of the season.
Imagine the pressure those kids face of being in on the act and not being able to tell their friends that the whole thing is a hoax. We train our kids to tell the truth, but they have to bite their tongues while their friends get their pictures taken at the mall and find elves invading their homes and track Santa’s whereabouts online. The whole damn advent calendar is like a ticking time bomb, just waiting to see if our kid is going to be the asshole who ruins Christmas for the ones who still believe.
So, while you’re decorating your gingerbread houses or baking your Santa cookies or making your world-famous fudge, think of that nice Jewish kid in your child’s class and make an extra batch for him. He’s been working his ass off for you and never gets any credit. Or he’s the one you’re cursing for blowing the whole thing. In that case, cut him a little slack. He really did try.
37
TWENTY WAYS YOU KNOW IT’S THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS
by Joelle Wisler
1. Your children aren’t sucking up to you anymore.
2. In fact, they are acting like little assholes.
3. Ironically, your children are surrounded by piles of new stuff.
4. Thus, it is safe to assume that new stuff turns your kids into assholes, and you tell them this. They start being a little nicer.
5. Your to-do list says, “It’s all been done, bee-atch!”
6. Your family has a uniform, and it’s called New Ugly Pajamas All Day.
7. You decide you will need to take out a small loan for new batteries.
8. And it takes you about five seconds to figure out which toys will “run out” of batteries and then mysteriously disappear in the post-Christmas chaos.
9. You might find yourself in a perpetual sugar coma because you ate Christmas cookies for breakfast. And lunch. And as a cocktail companion at four.
10. A particularly brave yet naive child may mention to you what they would like for Christmas next year.
11. You are forced to look up from your Game of Thrones marathon to give them The Look, and they shrink back into their LEGO-induced delirium.
12. You begin to notice toys that you don’t remember buying and think that you may have blacked out at some point mid-December after one too many chai teas.
13. You “accidentally” throw out your Elf on the Shelf, Buddy, with the recycling and hope your kids will forget about him next year. That shit was exhausting.
14. You briefly consider hiring a contractor to erect your daughter’s dollhouse. But the word “erect” makes you start to giggle and then you eat some more cookies and you don’t care anymore.
15. College football becomes a religious event that nobody in your house cared about until this day.
16. The Christmas carols that you have been too busy to listen to are abruptly gone from the local public station. That’s all, folks! No more Christmas cheer for you.
17. For once you decide not to care if your kids are turning their brains into mush, so there are no arguments about screen time and it is pure bliss.
18. It becomes very quiet as everyone plugs into all of their various iStuff.
19. You can hear yourself think. And you are surprised that you are pretty much just thinking about cookies.
20. This may be the best day of your life.
38
CHRISTMAS MORNING SANITY-SAVING FRENCH TOAST
by Jennifer Lizza
If you’re anything like me, you are so flipping tired on Christmas morning you’re lucky you can even pour a cup of coffee, let alone prepare breakfast for your family. I can tell you my family eats a delicious French toast casserole on Christmas mo
rning. I can also tell you that it takes zero preparation on my part, other than preheating the oven and sticking it in to cook. The key is you prepare it the day before and then bake it Christmas morning. It is by far the best breakfast you could possibly make while being able to lie on your couch and say, “Okay, boys, we are fresh out of batteries, so how about playing with your new coloring books?!” Nothing screams a better Christmas morning than your breakfast baking while you get to enjoy the fourth showing of A Christmas Story.
1 loaf French bread, cut into 1-inch slices
1 cup brown sugar
1 stick butter
1 Tablespoon white corn syrup
5 eggs
2 cups whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg
Combine brown sugar, softened butter, and corn syrup.
Press into the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking dish.
Place French bread slices on top of the brown sugar mixture.
Beat eggs with milk and vanilla.
Pour over bread. Sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg.
Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes until it’s bubbling and light golden brown. (If not brown enough, run briefly under broiler.)
39
TO TUBA OR NOT TO TUBA . . . THAT IS THE QUESTION
by Robyn Passante
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve uttered the words “I will never be the kind of mom who . . .” and then, approximately three weeks (or months, or days, or hours) later, proved myself a big huge liar.
But I can tell you it gets worse at Christmas.
I don’t mean for it to, but you’ve seen how it goes. By November 1 each year, friends are already thumbing through ads, beseeching Facebook, and scouring the Internet to help fulfill their children’s absurdly ambitious wish lists. How ridiculous, I’ve always scoffed silently. I will NEVER become a slave to whatever hard-to-find, überexpensive gift my son might decide he needs. How can parents rest their child’s entire holiday happiness on whether or not one particular present is under the tree? I’ll never be that kind of mom.
And I wasn’t! Um. Until last year, when my four-year-old wanted just one thing for Christmas. One thing. And it wasn’t an iPad or a Zoobie or a Squinky or whatever most four-year-olds were asking for. It was a tuba.
“A real tuba, not a toy,” he emphasized, which was fine because as it turns out there are absolutely no toy tubas in the world. Trust me, I checked seven times, and by then I was really wishing he’d wanted an iPad.
We had the following exchange approximately 476 times, and each time I hoped he’d magically change his mind:
Me: Kostyn, what do you want for Christmas this year?
Kostyn: A tuba!
Me: Wow, a tuba! What else do you want?
Kostyn: Nothing. I just want a tuba.
It soon became apparent he was not going to waver from this wish. When I told him tubas were hard to play and only kids who were eight or nine or ten could play them, he said, “Well, I’m four, so I need a four tuba.”
When I told him tubas were reeeeeally big and heavy and he probably couldn’t lift one, he stood on his chair, took a huge gulp of milk, and said, “I’m growing bigger every day, and I can stand like this and play it!”
No joke, his letter to Santa included this heartbreaker: “I love tubas and I will miss it if you can’t bring me one.”
Let me make clear that I understand the ridiculousness of a four-year-old owning, let alone attempting to hold, let alone attempting to play a tuba. Tubas are larger and heavier than most four-year-olds, and certainly larger and heavier than mine, who has consistently mystified pediatricians for being in the fourteenth percentile for height and weight. A tuba could crush my son.
But not getting one for Christmas might crush him too.
In desperation, I Googled “tuba.” The first result was $5,995. I immediately re-Googled “tuba,” adding the crucial adjective “used.” First result: $849, “With a case! And mouthpiece!” (Are mouthpieces usually not included? Because, hello . . .)
I closed the laptop. And I sat there for a while, envisioning my son on Christmas morning unwrapping his new tuba mouthpiece, the only part we might be able to afford. (At least he’d be able to hold it.) I thought about how it was the first year he really “got” Santa, the first year he wrote a letter asking for his special Christmas wish, the first year he got a note back (from Jingles the Elf, who said, “Wow, a tuba! Those are pretty big and heavy, but I’ll let Santa know . . .” Thanks, Jingles, for the setup.) It was the first year he asked every morning, noon and night, “Is it Christmas yet?”
To make things worse, his little brother, Evan, would be getting the only thing he kept asking for: a toy trumpet. How could Santa deliver on one wish but not the other? Especially when Evan’s gift would indicate Santa already had a pretty solid operation going in the horn department.
Just when I had convinced myself that Kostyn would love his other presents—including a cool toy saxophone to match his brother’s trumpet—we ran into a friend who innocently asked the very holiday-appropriate question, “Kostyn, what did you ask Santa Claus for for Christmas?”
“A tuba!” he exclaimed with a sureness in his voice that spelled disaster in my heart.
So I did the only thing I could do: on December 20, I beseeched all of Facebook for a tuba. “Does anyone have an old, used tuba lying in a basement somewhere?” I begged. “Or know of someone who does? Or have any idea where can I get a used tuba for less than the cost of our monthly rent?”
And do you know what happened? Facebook came through, TIMES TWO. By the end of that day I had not only one person offering to let us “indefinitely borrow” his old alto horn (which to a four-year-old would look, feel and sound just like a tuba) but another who’d quietly searched for, purchased, and given us a used euphonium (a bit smaller than a tuba, but for all intents and purposes, the real deal). I also had suggestions about how to rent a tuba, where to see the nearest symphony, and how to contact a tubist who lived in the next town over and might be willing to give Kostyn a private lesson.
I wanted to hold hands and sway and sing “Welcome Christmas” like the Whos in Whoville with all of Facebook that day.
Five days later, both my boys were thrilled with what Santa brought them, and the house was filled with joyful, loud, dissonant, perfect noise. And I was, for one fleeting moment at least, exactly the kind of mom I always said I wanted to be.
40
WHY DOES SANTA CLAUS HATE US?
by Nancy Friedman
My twins were eight when they asked me if Santa was an anti-Semite.
“What? No!” I said, carefully wrapping bacon around the pork loin I was preparing for Hanukkah dinner that night.
“If he’s not an anti-Semite, why doesn’t he come to visit us on Christmas?”
And there it was, the moment in every Jewish parent’s life when they need to decide what to tell their kids about Santa Claus.
Being a Jew during Christmas is hard. We have Hanukkah, sure, but so what? We tell ourselves that we have eight days of presents, and Christians have only one, but we know the truth, and every year, we hear about how Santa Claus is coming to town . . . just not to our house.
When I was growing up, my older brother tried an original tactic—he made up an alternative to Santa Claus: Hanukkah Joe. Hanukkah Joe was fit, not fat. Hanukkah Joe traveled by chopped liver–fueled flying car. Hanukkah Joe came in the front door so he wouldn’t get soot on his bespoke three-piece suit.
I may have been five to my brother’s fourteen, but I didn’t buy it. If Hanukkah Joe was real, why didn’t anyone have a light-up Hanukkah Joe on their front lawn? Why weren’t there any songs about him? And what about that flying car? When my grandmother put out chopped li
ver during the pre-Seder cocktail hour, it disappeared way faster than the cocktails. There was no way Hanukkah Joe was getting ahold of enough of it to fuel a flying Buick. (Hanukkah Joe would never drive a German car.)
So I knew Hanukkah Joe wasn’t going to cut it with my kids, either. I mean, these were kids who had asked me if the Jews rapped when they lived in the ghetto. Kids who marveled, at only four, at the great coincidence of everyone they knew being born on their birthdays. They were thinkers, these two.
“Santa doesn’t come to our house because we celebrate Hanukkah, and he only visits people who celebrate Christmas,” I answered, setting a challah on the table next to the menorah and the shrimp cocktail.
“So why don’t we celebrate Christmas,” my daughter asked, “instead of Hanukkah?”
“Well, Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus. And Jews don’t believe in Jesus, so we don’t celebrate his birthday.”
“But if Christmas has to do with Jesus and his birthday, what does Santa Claus have to do with it?”
She had me there. My knowledge of the origins of Santa Claus were exclusively derived from the Rankin/Bass Claymation special Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.
“Well, you see, Burgermeister MeisterBurger tripped one day . . .” I began.
“Oh, I get it!” said my son. “Santa Claus is just made-up, like God.”
And there it was. The moment in every secular Jewish parent’s life where they wonder if maybe, just maybe, they’ve taken things a bit too far.
41
THE DOS AND DON’TS OF CHRISTMAS WITH KIDS
by Toni Hammer
Holidays are hard with kids. Well, any day is hard with kids. But holidays are “special” days where you want your kids to be on their best behavior, mind their manners, and earn their “Mommy Loves Me Best” shirts. Here’s a handy guide of some dos and don’ts to help give you a scream-free Christmas.