When Santa saunters into the room at my husband's holiday work party, he's greeted with gleeful applause and shouts of delight. One little girl actually jumps up and down, squealing, "Santa!" The children are entranced.
All except one: my 3-year-old, who's glancing around with his eyebrows raised as if to say, "Huh?" When he spots the jolly bearded guy in the red suit, his eyes brighten. "Look! It's Rusty Nobody!" he exclaims. "Hi, Rusty Nobody!"
Who's Rusty Nobody? It's just a silly, made-up name Eli coined for Santa Claus — because he doesn't actually know who Santa Claus is.
Don't get me wrong: Eli loves Christmas. He just doesn't know that he loves it. He likes red and green well enough. He appreciates that every December, colored lights appear on the trees on our walk to school. He knows that some people pick out Christmas trees and bring them home — and this year, in just his third holiday season ever, I had to answer his first question about why we're not bringing home a Christmas tree. ("Because Grandma would have a heart attack" was edited out of my explanation.)
But at Eli's Jewish daycare, he spent the month of December learning what he felt were the most important things about Hanukkah (did you know that a menorah is actually called a hanukiyah? Eli does): that you can eat donuts fried in oil and how to cheat at dreidel (always turn your dreidel to gimel and then claim the whole pot for yourself).
So one day, when we were out admiring some holiday light decorations, it occurred to me that he probably had no idea who Santa Claus even was. We paused next to a giant inflatable Santa, his belly jiggling in the breeze.
"Do you know who this is?" I asked. Eli nodded enthuasiastically.
"Yeah!" he said. "That's Rusty Nobody!"
Sure, I thought, let's go with that.
December, more than any other time of year, sets up this kind of
dichotomy: Why don't we get to bring a tree into our house? Why don't we
string up colored lights?
I'm not a fan of the explanation that goes "We don't celebrate Christmas; we celebrate Hanukkah instead" — as if Hanukkah is supposed to be just some stand-in for Christmas where we've swapped out menorahs for Christmas trees and soufganiyot for figgy pudding.
Nor does explaining the complicated set of beliefs that separate Judaism and Christianity seem appropriate. After all, it's not like everyone who celebrates Christmas believes that the birth of Jesus Christ signified the coming of a Savior.
As I was puzzling over how to grapple with these questions, I realized something. I know that Eli knows about being Jewish — we light candles on Shabbat, we go to temple semi-regularly, we celebrate holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Passover — but does he know we are Jewish? For all he knows, maybe everyone lights candles and eats challah on Friday nights. Maybe everyone gives tzedakah and sings the Sh'ma right before bed.
I'd been so busy trying to weave Jewishness seamlessly into the fabric of our lives that I'd forgotten to give it a name. To say, We are Jewish, the same way I would say We are New Yorkers or We are Mets fans or We are runners — to make it clear that it's something to be proud of.
As Eli grows older, I want him to feel the same way about Christmas that I did when I was growing up: It was fun to help friends decorate their trees and nice to see cool light displays at others' houses. But it wasn't my holiday.
So when Eli spotted his pal "Rusty Nobody" at my husband's holiday party, I couldn't help but stifle a grin. A few days later, we found ourselves in Amish Country, riding a steam train through the countryside. Out the window, I spotted a large nativity display emblazoned with the words IS CHRIST IN YOUR CHRISTMAS?
I had to admit that he wasn't. But then again, neither was Rusty Nobody.
No comments:
Post a Comment