Observations of a Jew on Christmas

Let’s talk about Christmas.

Sure, I’m Jewish and I talk a lot about being Jewish. But when you consider how many of your favorite Christmas songs (and the best Christmas songs) were written by Jews, it’s clear that Jews have plenty to say about Christmas. I certainly do.

Christmas, Whether you Like it or Not

It doesn’t matter where I’ve lived or what I’ve done, it’s impossible to avoid Christmas. And since I’ve spent the last four months in Seventh Day Adventist medical facilities (first a hospital, now a rehabilitation center.) It’s harder than ever to escape Christmas here. Even if I have decked out my little corner with Hannukah decorations.

Truthfully, Even when it isn’t Christmas, it’s an uphill battle to keep a positive attitude here. Being sick is hard. Spending so much time in bed is hard. Recovering is hard. And Christmas makes it even harder. I do the best I can to put on a good face and keep my misery mostly private. (I know, the wisdom of that strategy is questionable. And it’s not that I never talk about having bad days or being frustrated with people here. I do. But the more I can keep (or sometimes force) a positive attitude about my recovery, the harder I’m able to work towards getting better. And that’s the ultimate goal–to get “as better as I can be.”)

With all the energy I put into keeping a positive attitude, I would expect it to follow then, that the holiday season should be peppered with extra feelings of joy to help keep spirits up here. To help with the isolation. To help with being away from family and traditions and the many things that make any holiday, not just the December holidays, special. 

Christmas, Like Ramadan, Starts 10 Days Earlier each Year

I don’t, as I’ve been accused of by some people in the past, “hate Christmas.” But I do find it oppressive. For months it’s an onslaught of holiday songs, of Santa Claus, and Christmas decorations. And that doesn’t count the people who like to do “Christmas in July” celebrations and promotions. It’s all pretty to look at and pleasant to listen to (my people know how to write good music) but two months of it when it’s just not your holiday, not something you really connect to, is a little much.

The activities team threw us a little Christmas party last week. Not a holiday party. Very much a Christmas party. Christmas decorations, Christmas treats, Christmas music and games. I think the only thing that wasn’t Christmas was the ice cream. I expected Christmas Day here to be similar.

I wasn’t exactly wrong. In the morning there was a Christmas church service for residents who wanted to go. I skipped this in favor of a cup of tea, a shower, and Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, which left me feeling sad and nostalgic when I thought about how many of the cast (including puppeteers) are dead. A little later came the parade of roaming pastors. I declined everyone’s offers to pray with me. I did manage to politely accept their offers to pray for me, while cringing the entire time, knowing that the visitors wouldn’t actually be praying for what I needed, but praying for me to claim their beliefs as my own. Some people seem very invested in the disposition of my soul if I don’t “accept” Jesus.

Pastor Laura

None of this helped relieve the dread I felt as Christmas arrived. If I’m being completely honest, it amplified it. I sent a few text messages to friends with Christmas wishes. Hoping for a little relief, I squeezed in a quick conversation with my friend Pastor Laura in between services at her church when she sent me a photo of the Baby Jesus in the manger from her service this year. I responded with a rude image I made from a photo of one of this year’s Disney Christmas ornaments. I don’t know what they were thinking. It was crying out for a caption like:

No one’s slick like Gaston
No one’s thick like Gaston
No one swings from a tree by his dick like Gaston

She showed me a terrible image of Vienna sausage deviled eggs with the caption, “Delicious, Delicious Baby Vienna sausage Baby Jesus always puts me in the holiday spirit. There was some virtual eye rolling over that particular treat.

The World needs more Pastors like Laura

I often joke that this Jewish kid learned more about faith from a Presbyterian minister than from anyone else, but it’s true. And talking to Laura finally helped relieve some of the Christmas misery I was feeling. When you can vent about Christian hegemony to someone whose job it is to spread the word of Jesus and have that person care about and validate your feelings, it changes everything. And the conversation with Laura made the rest of the day easier to deal with. 

The world really needs more pastors like Laura. I think I could fill an entire column with stories about Laura and why she’s so fantastic. She’s the kind of pastor who sends you Hannukah decorations for your room along with an adorable set of tea towels, and knows, without explanation, why a towel that says “Happy Challah-days” is eye roll-worthy. (Hint: Challah is not a Hannukah food.)

The kind of pastor who helps your eight-year-old’s campaign to get Hannukah decorations included in the holiday light display, and throws a fifty plus person Passover seder with you in the social hall at her church so that people who celebrate Passover can join in. And people who don’t can come and learn a little more about it and when you look around the table, the faces looking back at you are Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and more. Someone who shows up for services with you at your synagogue, and when everyone is gathered around to light the Havdalah candle to end Shabbat and begin celebrating Purim, the rabbi hands her the matches and suggests that “my favorite pastor” light the candle.

A Lonely, Invisible Jew

The day obviously wasn’t shaping up to be magical or wonderful or any of the other things that Christmas is supposed to be. The overnight CNA had been my least favorite of all, and she would be back that night. My favorite daytime CNA is out of town. She wouldn’t be working on Sunday anyway. But at least if she were here, on the days she was working,, she’d do her best to make me feel a little less like I was drowning in Christmas. 

We had a nice lunch and one of the churches came around with Christmas gifts attached to very Christmas-y cards and information about the church. I felt more and more invisible. Even though my space is very clearly decorated for Hannukah, it’s as if all of it wasn’t right there in front of people. What does it mean when someone walks into your space, which is visibly marked to indicate that you are different and still ignores it?

It’s hard enough dealing with the power imbalance that comes from dealing with people when you’re identified all the time as “patient.” Or how vulnerable you are when you’re dependent on the assistance of someone else for everything from a shower to getting your meals to using the bathroom. When people come into your space and ignore your identity, it hurts. When people come into your space and try to convince you to adopt their identity, it hurts even more.

Not Envious; Just Irritated

I’m not envious of Christmas. It’s been a very long time since I felt that way. I don’t want to take Christmas away, like the Grinch. I love when other people celebrate Christmas. And I even love sometimes being included in those celebrations. I’m just angry and frustrated at the invisibility of other options. At being erased or ignored. When this happens again and again, it’s easy to give up and just assimilate. And the meaning and timing of Hannukah notwithstanding, I am not interested in assimilation.

It’s not who I am. Not just because I’m Jewish. Or Queer, or disabled, or a feminist. My list of labels is endless, and not all of them align easily with the mainstream. And in order to be respected, they shouldn’t have to. The late Magge Estep, poet and spoken word artist, summed it up nicely, I think: “I’m not a normal girl, so bite me.”

For the sake of everyone around me, for all the CNAs here who take good care of me every day, I kept my usual Christmas misery and anger subdued. The CNAs do a difficult, thankless job and I appreciate every bit of what they do. There was no reason for my misery to rub off on them. 

Visitors

 And as people passed by my door, therapists and nurses and other residents, they would often wave and wish me a Merry Christmas. The creepy guy who visits his wife down the hall but stops on his way there to talk to me and tell me how much he likes my optimism and cheerful attitude came by to wish me a Merry Christmas. I reciprocated. I wished people “Merry Christmas” with a smile. And I genuinely meant it.

The activities director dropped by with gifts from some other organization that had donated them. He waved to me from the doorway and wished me a Happy Hannukah. Before he came in. Before he was able to see my decorations and my menorah.

I felt seen. For the first time all day, I was validated by someone here. I was important.

He told me he had a gift. I waved him in and he handed me a wrapped package. He asked about the puppet he’d brought me not too long, and if I’d named it yet. He said he’d drop by with the puppet I’d admired and would show me a few things about how to use it.

It’s amazing what a few minutes with someone who isn’t erasing some important part of you can do. 

The True Meaning of Christmas (and Other Things)

Later that afternoon, I was talking to one of the CNAs who was changing the sheets on my bed. Sarah doesn’t normally work with me. I asked if she had any plans to celebrate Christmas when she was done with work. She told me no.That even though she’d been raised Baptist and Pentacostal and gone to Catholic schools while growing up in Haiti, her husband’s church doesn’t celebrate Christmas and so she doesn’t either. She talked a little bit about why they don’t celebrate Christmas, and asked me about my Christmas celebration. And then I told her that I don’t celebrate Christmas. We talked about the differences in our beliefs.

The Different Bibles

She talked about which books are in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) but not in the Bible she uses. It took both of us to remember the whole list. She asked if I knew the story of Christmas. I laughed and told her that it’s probably close to impossible to grow up in the US and not know the story of Christmas. I shared the story of Hannukah, which Sarah had never heard before. We talked about covenants. We talked about how Jesus isn’t a prophet in my faith. 

Life After Death

She was most curious about what happens after death. That question comes up so often when I talk to Christians about Judaism. It’s hard to understand, for some people, the focus on this world, not Olam HaBa (the world to come). I think Sarah was even more curious about who gets to go there. I cannot tell if people are more surprised by the idea that you don’t have to be Jewish to go to Olam HaBa or that not believing doesn’t condemn you to eternal punishment. Of course we talked about the idea of a messiah. I said that part of my job is to help with repairing the world to make it ready for the messiah to come. That the messiah hasn’t been here yet. Sarah talked about how she knows that the messiah has been here already and that we’re just waiting for him to come back. 

A Good Conversation is a Precious Thing

It was a good conversation. It wasn’t free of the fetishizing of Jewish people as having a special relationship with G-d, or special covenants or anything like that. But I think we each came away from that conversation understanding something new. Sarah learned a little about Judaism. I learned to let go of the anger about Christian hegemony a little bit more.

It only worked because we listened. Because we talked without an agenda. There was no “I’m right, you’re wrong” to it. Just two people sharing what they know. Maybe not worthy of the Nobel Peace prize, but you can’t build a sandcastle unless you can stick the grains of sand together.

Chinese Food: The Jewish Christmas Feast

It made the rest of the day a little brighter. The CNAs spoiled me a little bit. Someone brought me tamales. Someone else made me a plate from the Chinese food luncheon they had (eating Chinese food on Christmas is an important Jewish custom for me). With sweet and sour chicken and fried rice. Someone else brought me a pretty handmade bookmark with candy canes and some ginger candy. I felt loved. I didn’t have to do anything. But be myself. I lit the last candle on my menorah that night, and said the blessing over the candles while balancing a plate of tamales on my lap, with spicy ginger candy on my table for later.

I couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas here. With gifts and treats and love. But those CNAs also gave me an incredible last night of Hannukah, too. The tamales and Chinese food and other treats were nice. I got to share their holiday. I got to share my holiday. And if I were a Grinch, perhaps my heart would have grown a few sizes that day.