Yuletide yearnings

For a little Jewish girl, growing up in America was hard when all she wanted for Christmas... was Christmas.

By ANDREA SIMANTOV
merry hanukka_521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
merry hanukka_521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Every year at about this time, I experience a roiling angst that can be traced directly to my having been a Jewish child in a “Season’s Greetings” America. Even my ethnically rooted parents fell prey to the pressures of parity and graced us with an exciting wrapped gift each night immediately after Hanukka candle-lighting. The proscenium archway of the formal dining room was lined with silver tinsel; the bay window that boldly faced New York City’s 159th Avenue boasted three tin hanukkiot – one for each child – alongside the plastic-armed, electric candelabra that my mother had purchased at the corner drugstore.
The entertainment portion of the festivities extended into the wee hours of the morning as we gambled away piles of foil-wrapped chocolate coins and whole walnuts in casino-worthy games of Dreidel to the Death. Sadly, all of this only provided temporary succor once the flashing of the neighbors’ stringed Christmas lights illuminated our darkened living room.
Am I allowed to say, albeit quietly, that I truly miss the “Holiday Season”? That I get a real charge from knowing that I’m the only Jew-from-birth in my workplace who knows all the words to “We Three Kings of Orient Are” and can whip up a potent batch of eggnog from ingredients found in the local kosher supermarket? That I still remember the palpable excitement of waiting for the doubleedition of Spencer’s winter catalog, jampacked with festive gift ideas like a snowman shower curtain (and hooks!) or an Advent calendar made out of chocolate?
I wanted Christmas presents! Voicing such a sentiment would have undoubtedly incurred great wrath, but my current quest for historical honesty demands that the heart’s song and hope of a little Jewish girl from New York be heard. Here and now I report that, miraculously, my dream did come true for one brief moment and from a most unlikely source.
December 1962 found seven-year-old me in the pediatric urology ward of the somber, graywalled New York Hospital. Diagnosed with a defect of the urinary tract, I awakened postsurgery to find my mother and my beloved grandparents – Yehuda and Rivka – standing at the side of the hand-cranked, adjustable bed.
Grandma hefted onto my concave chest a large box wrapped in sheets of the previous day’s Long Island Press. She gurgled, “Ofn em, mein kind!” and obediently I ripped away the newspaper, blackening my nail-bitten fingers in the process.
Lo and behold, my mother helped me lift out a curious piece of art, replete with a pasteon- plaque called “Santa at Work.” It consisted of a wicker sleigh and iron runners, with a perky Kris Kringle at the reins leading his faithful red-nosed Rudolph through (one could imagine) a snowy and star-filled night. Both Santa and Rudolph were made of Styrofoam, and the little red suit was crafted out of arts-and-crafts felt. The sleigh’s hollow section was stuffed with dark green floral foam into which was pressed a mad medley of poisonous- if-ingested holly sprigs and mistletoe, another kiss-of-death favorite. Without a doubt, my immigrant grandparents thought that the little red guy was an eccentric rabbi from a village not far from their own shtetl.
I might only be imagining that one of my visiting aunts sarcastically muttered under her breath, “Another gift-giving triumph” because I was still groggy from the anesthesia. In any case, this was my earliest understanding that there are Jewish gifts and, well, the other kind. But me? Dazed or not, I was thrilled to have received my first real Christmas present!
Gifts aside, it was everything about the season that seemed to stop the clock for others but not for us. Indeed, in my heart of hearts, I wanted to deck our halls with boughs of holly, if only for the fun of comparing notes during nippy-aired games of Double-Dutch during recess. Schoolyard shouts of “Did your dad bring home the tree yet?” were enough reminder of one’s outsider status.
On the other hand, my split-personality disorder evidently had gastronomic roots because all ethnic envy evaporated the moment I inhaled the unmistakable scent of freshly baked doughnuts. Jelly filled or plain, custard crème or crullers, I became a 110% Daughter of Zion the moment someone muttered the phrase Dunkin’ Donuts. My siblings and I annually crooned “Maoz Tzur” and “O Hanukka, O Hanukka” before diving headfirst into a platter of shirt-staining goodies. Did Judah Maccabee and his fellow yeshiva buddies suffer from carbohydrate overload? Can’t say.
But, as every parent knows, not every child is cut from the same cloth. Once outside of my proudly Jewish home, I sensed that synagogue- sponsored Hanukka hops left the stench of greasy potato pancakes (eau du latke) clinging to my woolen jumper, and even this charm lost its luster once Cathy Rourke sauntered onto the school bus wearing a knitted red-and-white nose warmer, a tassel hanging jauntily from the tip.
Could I have been born into the wrong family? Occasionally I imagined some big-boned daddy called Biff or Chuck traipsing through a snow-crusted forest in thick-soled boots, his hands itching with the inexplicable urge to wield a trusty tree-axe the moment he spotted the perfect Douglas fir. This reverie eventually gave way to thoughts of my own skinny father, snappily clad in his casual Sunday wear – black wing-tip shoes, thick-cuffed dungarees and open-collar button-down white shirt (a madcap concession to the sporty feel of the day) – standing in line in the neighborhood appetizer store with other members of our tribe, ordering a half pound of Novie lox and two large chub whitefish.
It is a lifetime later. Lighting the long tapers on my Jerusalem patio with my very Jewish children, together we usher in another night of Hanukka. This ritual evokes tear-filled but joyous recollections of both uncertainty and excitement. I would not trade my childhood for another, but I find great comfort in knowing that my children never had to wrestle with the post-Thanksgiving confusion of my secular American childhood.
That said, let me add an epicurean footnote: Mincemeat pie (made with raisins and currants, not meat) goes very well with a dollop of sour cream – alongside, of course, a bubbling and greasy potato pancake.
Ho, ho, ho, and Hanukka sameah one and all!