‘Tis the Season

Since early October, most stores have had their Christmas displays up, and it’s been nearly impossible to ignore the fact that there’s A VERY BIG HOLIDAY lurking just around the corner.  A short year ago, I had a husband and a mother, and was planning to spend the holiday with both of them.   Now that I have neither, it’s hard to get excited about Christmas.

Growing up, my mother put up our tree on the day after Thanksgiving every year, or by that Sunday, at latest.  It was a tradition I carried on in our family, and Bunny was more than happy to help.  His specialty was stringing the lights.  More lights than one tree should ever hold.  We’d hang the ornaments on the tree and drape all the stockings (his, mine, JoCo and kids’, and one for each cat) over the china cabinet or the patio door.  Hey, we didn’t have a fireplace in Florida!  My mother was fairly crafty when it came to crocheting and embroidery.  About 20 years ago, she made each of us Christmas stockings, embellished with sequins and embroidered with our names.

Last year, since we were supposed to be going to Louisiana for Christmas, we didn’t haul out the big tree.  Instead, I got a table-top tree and decorated it, just to be festive.  I later added a second table-top tree, this one made of aluminum, because I couldn’t pass it up—it was a miniature version of my maternal grandmother’s huge aluminum tree, so it was nostalgic and quite mid-century modern, which is my décor style.

I tried to get into the holiday spirit this year on the weekend after Thanksgiving.  I opened the storage container that holds the stockings, and the first one I came to was Bunny’s.  I held it in my hands for a few minutes and studied the scene with Santa climbing into a chimney against a blue background.  Santa’s suit is blinged out with red sequins, and “John” is embroidered across the top in dark thread.   I couldn’t keep the thought out of my head: once upon a time, my mother hand-made this stocking for my husband. Crap!  If there was one symbol of my lost loved ones, this stocking had to be the front-runner.  I couldn’t put it away and shut the lid fast enough.

Now I was stuck.  It just felt wrong not to celebrate, but I’d be an emotional wreck with all the reminders around me, glittery and beautiful as they are.  I hit upon the solution relatively quickly: instead of full-blown Christmas, I’d celebrate Chanukuh.    Long before my family celebrated Jesus’ birth, Jesus celebrated Chanukuh.   I’ve never done a full-blown, eight-day celebration of Chanukuh, and it’s certainly a holiday I’d never shared with Bunny or Mama.  No ghosts of Christmas Past when you’re celebrating Chanukuh!

Off to Target I went, picking up a menorah, candles and dreidels.   Then, because I have a near-morbid phobia of open flames, I bought a menorah with blue, candle-shaped light bulbs, too.  I Skyped my friend William to show them off, which sparked a case of menorah-envy in him.  The next day, he went to the same Target and got his own menorah, candles and dreidels.  I told him that two menorahs and accessories selling at the same North Hillsborough/South Pasco County Target within 24 hours would create a skewed sense of demand.

So Saturday at sundown, I will celebrate the first night of Chanukuh with William and my family.   My family will light the menorah and spin dreidels for the first time, and learn how another religion celebrates an important holiday.   We will eat the Cajun all-purpose winter meal: gumbo.  We will be culturally and nutritionally enriched, and we will be happy.   The Christmas trees can come out again next year, when I’ll be ready for them.