I am what my husband likes to refer to as "Jewish enough." Raised though I was in that Other Religion (or, as my husband likes to call it, "the Spin-Off) I have no deep-rooted affinity to the faith of my upbringing and am not, in fact, a believer. Therefore, it was no great wrench for me to agree to be married under the chuppah by a broad-minded lady rabbi. She had to be broad-minded, because I did not convert to Judaism, since, truth to tell, I didn't believe in that, either. However, since my husband-to-be and I were swiftly cresting middle age at the time of the ceremony (yes, Gentle Reader - sadly, it's all downhill from here) there was no question of quibbling over How Will the Children Be Raised. There weren't going to be any children - barring one of those ludicrous Abraham-and-Sarah scenarios that make it so hard for skeptical people like me to take the whole thing very seriously in the first place.
Mind you, every so often I have sat in shul on a Friday night and enjoyed the music. After awhile, I even got so I could hum-sing along without getting caught. Having seen the baroque church architecture of Bavaria in my younger days, and turned away with a shudder as visions of demented pastry chefs with glue-guns and gold leaf danced through my head, I have to say it was also quite refreshing to sit in the relatively chaste decor of B'nai Jeshurun when we still lived on the Upper West Side.
And since we are the kind of people who perk up and start concocting menus and guest lists when somebody says "holiday"and "party" in the same breath, we have simply doubled up on the celebrations, and that seems to work very well. Pass the matzah ball soup and crack the shells on some of those oddly-tinted eggs, please.
However, even after ten years of seasonal togetherness, it never fails to take my husband by surprise when December rolls around and I am overcome by nostalgie de la Buche de Noel and start decking those halls like an ambitious designer who has just been handed the contract to bedizen the Saks Fifth Avenue Christmas windows.
This year I am worse than ever, for several reasons.
1. We have a much bigger house. Hence, I have a much larger canvas.
2. The former owner not only left behind an incomplete set of Spode china, two Wusthof knives, an unbelievable amount of dirt and rubbish, and - the jewel in the crown - a minuscule plastic wind-up phallus that hops up and down on two wee plastic feet, she also left us a ton of Christmas decorations, including (but not limited to): A fake fir banister garland entwined with crimson silk poinsettias, blood-red silk roses, and tiny white lightbulbs; a wreath made entirely of jingle bells; an enormous pair of red metallic-toned Christmas bells; thirteen whimsical little china buildings that have lightbulbs inside them and look remarkably like the annual choo-choo display at the Bronx Botanical Garden if you don't look too closely (the buildings include several churches, a tea room, a lighthouse, and, strangest of all, a lobster restaurant - somebody must have gone to Maine); a slew of large plastic candy canes (for lining the walk to the front door); three fake poinsettias in gold-foil pots; umpteen strings of holiday lights; and quite a lot of pieces of Styrofoam gaily wrapped as holiday gifts, just to put everybody in the mood. Add to this the enormous amount of holiday kitsch I lugged along from our apartment-dwelling days and well, you really have something.
I have also discovered, with a touch of dismay, that the former owner, a fragile elderly woman who probably weighed about 90 lbs. soaking wet, managed to drive four nails into the solid stone fireplace wall - for hanging the stockings with care, in the hope that You-Know-Who soon would be there, dontcha know. So that was where I hung the little felt menorah with the Velcro'd fabric flames that get stuck to the menorah one-by-one to the right of the fireplace, and the fake mistletoe that the former homeowner left on the other side, till I can find a place to hang the mistletoe where somebody might actually kiss under it. The little wooden King Nutcracker who turned up in the silverware drawer is on the mantelpiece. I had tried him on the hearth at first, but the dog was inclined to think he was a new toy and I got tired of fishing him out from under the bed. I think it must be the fake fur beard that's confusing her.
3. Now that he's safely at college and in no danger of being mistaken for a Child, my Son and Heir has stopped being Cynical about Good Old Fashioned Holiday Cheer and become Sentimental (which is, of course, a sign that he's actually getting Old, but don't tell him I said so.)
4. Nobody is home during the day to make me stop.
So I have been elfing away like mad, and I'm having a great deal of fun with it. But every night my poor dear husband comes home from work, puts his head into his hands, and moans, "Tchotchkes! More tchotchkes!"
I haven't had the heart to tell him that I've found a place where they sell really big trees.
