My wife loves Christmas. And I love my wife. It should be as simple as that. But of course it isn’t, and I want to tell you the story behind how I got here — a deeply dedicated Jew who fully embraces “the most wonderful time of the year.”
Growing up, I didn’t celebrate this holly jolly holiday because everyone in my family, up until my generation, was Jewish — had to be Jewish. I didn’t feel like I lacked anything and never envied my Christian neighbors — Christmas just wasn’t mine in the same way I didn’t have a pet bird. I just didn’t.
When I met Colleen (working at Camp Tawonga, a Jewish summer camp) I learned quickly that though she wasn’t Jewish, she had an eagerness to learn and sing and dance. She openly engaged in Jewish ritual and even tried to say the Shabbat blessings in Hebrew (with increasing accuracy). Something else I learned about Colleen? Though she didn’t affiliate with any religion in particular, she worshiped the magic of Christmas.
Fast forward. Colleen and I are dating and I’m about to come home with her for “the holidays” (side note: on this trip she proposed to me in Denver International Airport by holding a sign as I came up the escalator. December is also ours in very special ways). I’m sitting on the airplane, wondering what the heck is about to happen. Will I feel totally out of place? Defensive? Do I get to choose what I participate in or is this just, all in, like getting dunked in one of those carnival games? Let’s just say, I got soaking wet.
I open the door to my now in-laws and the entire house glowed red and green — poinsettias and 70+ Santa statues that Jeff, my doting father-in-law, collects (Lynn, I want to publicly recognize your extreme patience. You are a legend). Jeff also had decorated a large house plant with Pittsburgh Steelers ornaments — the “Steeler’s Tree” I quickly learned. Christmas music was on the radio with Jimmy Buffet’s Christmas Island queued up on CD. All the plates, cups, cat dishes, towels, soaps, coffee table books, artwork, candles, everything had been swapped out for its Christmas counterpart. Christmas socks. Christmas sheets. Christmas photos had been re-affixed to the refrigerator from decades past. It was really more of an art installation than a decorated house — a portal.
And the activities? Scheduled down to the minute. “We have to walk around the neighborhood to see the decorations” — and drive by the bigger houses at night (and critique as we swoon). The Nutcracker. White Christmas. Ice skating downtown. The German Christmas Market. Denver Botanical Gardens. Playing cards around the kitchen table and a jigsaw puzzle in the dining room. A gift wrapping station in the basement with festive ribbon, paper, and bows (all recycled, of course).
Lots of wine.
Christmas was not a day — it was an atmosphere. It was a better world where everything is sacred. It reminded me of Shabbat in a way — like we were living outside of time.
Oh, but Christmas was also a day. Christmas morning we all sat around the tree, reminisced about where ornaments came from, and retold family stories of times when grandparents and passed pets were alive. We wore festive hats (Jeff had on his Steelers Santa hat) as we exchanged gifts — tangerines and chapstick in our stockings.
Then breakfast and napping and “the game” preceded dinner with dear friends.
For my wife and her family, this was not about the birth of Jesus, but it was about so much. It was about pausing the daily grind and focusing on family. It was about the yearly scavenger hunt Jeff organizes for the kids (still does… the only $20 bill I can count on each year). It was about transporting ourselves into a new life, supported by ritual and play, that reminds us that, as if by magic, we get to create the world we want to live in.
And for me, Christmas is about honoring the traditions of my new family. Christmas is about listening. It is about the wisdom of ritual — how it gives shape to an otherwise chaotic world. For me, Christmas is about vacationing into a mindset of imagination and kindness.
I love my wife (and in-laws). My wife loves Christmas. And I too, now, have my own relationship with this special season. It is not a compromise for this Jew. It is a gift.
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