In this excerpt from my memoir, Christmas knocks Hannukkah to the mat. A ten count KO.
My childhood memoir When I Was German is now available for Kindle at Amazon:
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At Hanukkah my old man told me the story of the lights again. He lit the candles
for eight nights, but I wasn’t interested. Christmas was coming very soon. I knew there
wasn’t a Santa Claus any more, I was after all growing big and smart, that instead there
was someone better, my mother, who would get me almost everything on my Christmas
list. I was too busy picking out toys and making my list to pay attention to the dreidle
and the chocolate gelt.
We had a huge Christmas tree. My mother hurt herself putting it up. It wouldn’t
stay in the stand. She had to tie it to nails hammered into the wall. And she wasn’t
happy when she was finished. It wasn’t a German Christmas.
I felt sorry for my mother. Her German Christmas was gone. Now all she had
was the American Christmas, with all its crazy gift giving she hated, and all the spoiling
of children she complained about.
Despite that, the Christmas tree was surrounded by a pile of bright gift boxes,
each taped and wrapped tightly by her. I was given everything I had asked for. More
things than I could play with. Was I a greedy American kid who had it too easy? Was I
spoiling my mother’s Christmas?
Or was my mother the spoiler because she couldn’t let go of the past? Was the
grief from her lost German Christmases, for her vanished father and her ruined country
so strong that it destroyed her capacity for joy? That it drove her to shame me for the
gifts she gave?
How did my old man feel about Christmas? I don’t celebrate Christmas, he said.
I’m a Jew. You’re a Jew. But your mother likes to have her Christmas, to give presents.
It’s an American holiday now. Jews can go and celebrate with Gentiles, that’s okay, but
we don’t believe in Jesus. We don’t bring Jesus into Christmas.
And neither did my mother. She lamented that Christmas was supposed to be
about something special. She wouldn’t say what, but I knew she meant Jesus. She knew
my old man wouldn’t allow that. She compensated by spoiling me. I don’t think he
realized how each new toy was another clod of earth burying Chanukkah and my
Jewishness. It was another facet of my mother’s secret battle, but no longer so secret that
he couldn’t have seen it. My mother kept undoing their agreement: If he is a boy we
will raise him as a Jew. And tragically, my old man, magnanimous about Christmas and
ham and cheese sandwiches, helped her.
My birthday came soon after Christmas. I got more presents. That was good
because I had already smashed a lot of my Christmas presents. Ripped up the game
pieces, sent the trains flying down the cellar steps, smashed the Hot Wheels that didn’t
race fast enough with bricks pulled from the crumbled walkway alongside the house.
My mother was very mad at me. Why, she screamed, do you wreck your toys? What’s
the matter with you? Why don’t you appreciate what you have?
I did appreciate what I had. But I didn’t deserve it when German children had
nothing in the war. I undid my mother’s mistake in spoiling me. It was easy because
more toys were always coming.
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