Well, the holiday season is here. In a way, it's weird that we call this the holiday season, since there are holidays all through the year. But here in the good ol' U S of A, we save our grandest holiday cheer for the shopping season between Thanksgiving and Christmas, with an extra week tacked on the end for New Year's.
Since you're all avid readers of my blog, you already know that I'm Jewish. I say this not because I've written about my Jewish heritage (I don't think I have), but because the group of avid readers of my blog includes only my wife, my son, and my mother. Maybe "avid" is overselling it a bit - my wife is probably the only one who thinks to check for new posts regularly (thanks babe!). Also, my sister and her husband read through some of the posts once, when they were visiting Eugene. And I suppose it's possible that someone who hates cheesecake stumbled across my site and managed to get through a post or two before realizing that it's really just the semi-sensical ramblings of a guy who also happens to hate cheesecake.
So to that random cheesecake-hater or two: it's actually the semi-sensical ramblings of a Jewish guy who also happens to hate cheesecake. Now you know.
Anyway... I don't celebrate Christmas. Actually, I suppose that's not technically accurate. Most years on Christmas, my family and I go to a friend's house and eat steak. And on Christmas Eve, we go to my cousins' house (one of them is a gentile), and we eat a rib roast. They're celebrating Christmas and we're along for the ride, so in a way I guess we're celebrating. But we're not celebrating because Christmas means something to us - it doesn't. It's more accurate to say that we're supporting other people's celebration. It's yet more accurate to say that we're in it for the meat.
And speaking of meat, let's talk about fried potatoes - specifically, potato latkes. In my family, we do celebrate Hanukkah. There are lots of ways to spell Chanukah in English. On Hanukah, we eat potato latkes, which is a Jewish (or maybe Yiddish, or maybe something else) way of saying potato pancakes. A really good potato latke is crispy and delicious. You know, the way my wife makes them. Mmmmmm.
We also give presents to each other. Mostly to our son. The thing is, it's kinda hard to compete with Christmas when it comes to presents. A lot of the kids I know get a LOT of Christmas presents. There are boxes sitting under the tree, boxes hidden in closets, boxes from Mom and Dad and Everyone Else, boxes from Santa. As far as I can tell (and since I don't really celebrate Christmas, this is all reconstructed from my many years of careful observation and meticulous note-taking), there's usually some kind of box-opening frenzy, either Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning, depending on which version of box-frenzy your family celebrates. As it turns out, Christmas traditions vary quite a bit if you take the time to look closely, or if you just listen to this highly educational reading by David Sedaris.
Hanukkah is a bit different. There are eight nights of Hanukah, and the usual Jewish American tradition is to light the menorah, sing the prayers, and give presents every night. Most of us, at least in my generation, went to Hebrew school for many years. I'm pretty sure I was in Hebrew school about 65 hours a week for almost 30 years, but my mom says it was less than that. In all those countless hours of Hebrew school, I learned how to sing a few prayers, and pretty much nothing else. I don't even know what most of the words in the prayers mean - I really just memorized the sounds. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. So on Chanukah, we light the candles, regurgitate the memorized sounds, give each other hugs, and move on to the presents. Since there are eight nights, it's traditional to give eight presents. We tried that when my son was young. And following in the tradition of my birth family, we gave a small present each of the first seven nights, and a bigger present on the eighth and final night. Unfortunately, in a world where many of the other kids are celebrating Christmas, receiving one small gift is not a very impressive way to spend an evening. Hanukkah gift-giving was one of the more disappointing experiences of the year. Or, depending how you look at it, it was really seven of the more disappointing experiences of the year (or eight, if the "big" gift fell flat).
But this was our tradition. This was one of the rights of passage for a middle class Jewish kid in the suburbs of Rochester - suffering through seven ridiculously small gifts, just to get to the one good gift at the end. As if suffering through Hebrew school wasn't enough. I know - this is nothing compared to the real suffering of Jews and others throughout the ages, but when you grow up lucky and privileged, like I did, you find your suffering where you can.
I shouldn't complain. One year I got a tennis racket. One year I got a 10-speed bike. Those were the big gifts. The little gifts were things like stickers with my name on them, pencils with my name on them, a little license plate with my name on it, or a little plastic thing for the door of my bedroom that said, "Nathan's Room." Yeah, that's right - my parents knew my name, and they weren't afraid to admit it. But the worst gift of all was a Very Large Pink Eraser that said, "For Big Mistakes." And before you start thinking this is really cool - it didn't say it out loud, it was just printed on it. I mean, who wouldn't want to get one of those as a present?
I never let my mom live it down. For years, I brought it up every chance I had, as a reminder of the very real pain I suffered as a child. The thing is, I still have it. I've carried that eraser around with me, from city to city, from home to home, for more than 30 years. Every time I moved and I went through my stuff to see what I didn't really need to pack and move and unpack in the new house, I came across the Big Eraser For Big Mistakes and I decided to keep it. I talked about it a lot, not just to tease my mom. When my son was old enough to understand my words but still young enough to listen to me, I told him about it. When he was disappointed with his gifts, I told him again. One time, he asked if he could have it. I gave it to him. He slept with it under his pillow for one night. Then he lost it. I found it and put it back in my box of stuff that I carry around from house to house.
After a while, I started to realize the true gift of the eraser. It's not the eraser itself. It's not the Big Mistakes I needed to erase. It's the stories I told. And the memories I kept alive. As it turns out, the Big Eraser For Big Mistakes is one of the most meaningful gifts I've ever received. My mom was over for a Hanukkah dinner last night (porterhouse steaks, Brussels sprouts, and of course, potato latkes - all cooked wonderfully by my wife), and she mentioned the eraser, which inspired me to write this post.
If I were so inclined, I'd tell this whole story to my mom the next time I see her. Especially that last paragraph. Or maybe I'll just wait for her to drop by ihatecheesecake.com and read it for herself.
Chappy Chanukah!