NO?L COWARD
KUR, CAROL
NO?L COWARD CAROL KUR Every year, we would take a ride to look at the lights. It was a family ritual. One evening, sometime between December 23 and January 1 (but never on the day), we would...
...O come, let us adore hi-immmm, hum, hum, hu-hum...
...There's nothing sacred about that...
...Even the Maccabees did not face such overwhelming odds...
...And before long, the thung-thung-thung of the tire chains was drowned out by pure, if restrained, four part harmony (but never the words...
...That's archaic...
...Witness: The Chanukah Bush becomes a seasonal tradition in any number of otherwise Jewish households...
...I remember returning home one Christmas Eve several years ago to find the fireplace mantle festooned with bright red knee socks to which our children had affixed white cotton balls...
...This is the season when Jewish marginality, never very far from the surface, emerges fully blown, disturbing the delicate ecumenical truce that governs our neighborly interactions from January through November...
...Or, "We only let the children hang stockings on Christmas Eve...
...Nor does it do at all well to sermonize about the folly of such misguided behavior...
...Don't fill the stockings and wake them for the chat that very minute...
...And, of course, we had the talk in the morning...
...We may feel a bit of lust in our hearts—the harmonies are spectacular—but in the end, Christmas is their Christmas: at its best, our neighbors' Christmas, mangers and all, and season's greetings to them every one...
...NO?L COWARD CAROL KUR Every year, we would take a ride to look at the lights...
...But, that we count on those eight little candles to outshine the splendor of trees, tinsel, sparkling electricity of sight and sound, so daz-zlingiy packaged by Madison Avenue's best, is simply too much to ask...
...And we, who are noted for our ability to persevere in the face of adversity, do not cope well at all...
...Fill the stockings and have a heart-to-heart chat in the morning...
...I don't know if we did the right thing...
...Or, it becomes custom for large families to congre- gate, have a holiday meal, and exchange "Chanukah" gifts on December 25—after all, everyone has the day off, and it is so convenient to hold the celebration on that day...
...Our compliments to the singers, the dancers, the players—and then home, to make our own warmth, a different warmth, not with the glow of candles alone, but with rich remembering, fervent dream, and lavish, unimitative present...
...Ignore them...
...And when we arrived home to our own dark house, we drank hot chocolate in subdued silence, despite the reminders from our parents that we, after all, had eight days, and they only had one...
...The lights were gloriously beautiful, and my fantasies projected detailed imaginings of the joy and festivity and warmth and glow that was happening inside all those sparkling, clean, well-lighted houses...
...Oh, we don't celebrate it as a religious holiday...
...On its own, Chanukah is a lovely holiday...
...So—otherwise sensible, if casual, Jews find all manner of rationalization acceptable in their charade of inclusion...
...Perhaps, as future generations of young Jews reach maturity, they will be armed with a stronger sense of security about themselves than we, their forebears...
...It's really become a secular holiday...
...Humor them...
...We stuffed silver kiddush cups, Chanukah candles, Hebrew notebooks, drei-dels, Simchat Torah flags, hats and coins from our last trip to Israel, old copies of the Synagogue bulletin, and finally, on the very top of each stocking, we placed a shiny prisoner of conscience ma-gen david necklace...
...Clandestine...
...Try that one out on an observant Christian friend, bent on doing his thing— putting the Christ back into Christmas...
...Or, "Chanukah Joe" sneaks in the back door at the homes of good little Jewish boys and girls, while his merry old cousin Nick is busy pursuing the more conventional chimney route...
...The tire chains would thung-thung-thung-thung through the snow as we crept along the holiday-hushed neighborhood streets...
...After we recovered from fits of uproarious laughter (probably more hysterical than gleeful), we pondered what to do...
...Appreciation for its meaning can be shared by the very young, who delight in the story of the miracle of the little flask of oil, or by the more advanced, who can marvel at the miracle of deliverance from oppression and can grasp the significance of rededication...
...And so we have much to celebrate...
...I only know that it was our first and last "stocking caper...
...The neighbors worked hard to out-do themselves (and each other) every year...
...Always given to the dramatic, I pretended to be the Poor Little Match Girl...
...That our own Festival of Lights competes for seasonal honors is indeed a mixed blessing...
...Until they do, the seasonal identity crisis will continue to be a problem to be acknowledged, to be managed...
...Was it really the way the stories described it...
...Unquestionably, this is not our season to be jolly, Chanukah notwithstanding...
...That such actions are an infringement upon traditions that do not belong to us, that in our efforts to include ourselves we demean our own heritage and mock the heritage we so crudely emulate—that's clear...
...We don't have a tree or anything...
...Tell the kids we never saw them...
...Finally, we searched the house for any and every Jewish object we could lay our hands on...
...Inevitably, someone would begin to hum the melody of a carol, and because singing together was commonplace for us, the others couldn't resist joining in...
...Yet it remains for all of us but the most isolated and insulated (read: ghet-toized) it is impossible to be blind to the splendor of the season, and it is human to reach out for the camaraderie that it engenders...
...Perhaps pride in ethnicity will continue to grow stronger, and religious understanding expand...
...One evening, sometime between December 23 and January 1 (but never on the day), we would bundle into our coats and galoshes and climb into the old Dodge...
...The one...
Vol. 2 • December 1976 • No. 3
