Christmases Past and Shabbats Future
For some people, Christmas never keeps its promise. But for me as a child, Christmas never failed. It was always magical, always a mystery, always the one day of the year that could be counted on to bring us together as a family. In other words, it was the one celebration (aside from Passover dinner at Aunt Sophie’s) that my father, Saturday Review editor Norman Cousins, wouldn’t dream of missing.
But whereas Passover was an obligation, Christmas was for him, and therefore for us, nothing but fun and a shimmering joy. And the fact that he could bestow it so guiltlessly upon his children represented, for him, America’s wonderful liberation from his own parents’ Old World ties and Jewish tribal bondage. Come Dec. 24, no urgent meeting in Washington, no lecture in Des Moines, not even an editorial deadline, could ever have dragged him from our midst in snowy Connecticut.
My father may have yearned for freedom from ritual, but our observance of Christmas had many, and we guarded them zealously, inflexibly. The tree got decorated only on Christmas Eve, not before, and only tiny white lights were allowed, no multi-colored ones; no one could open any present without everyone else watching, so it took all morning long, opening everything one by one. Then came the huge family breakfast, the only time all year we did such a thing, to eat breakfast all together, formally, in the dining room--with candles on the table and good linen. And then, at last, the crowning glory: My father would appear in his annual Santa Claus costume, which as the years went by, became more and more comical and absurd--Santa as old woman, Santa as hairy gorilla, Santa with little bells and a tin can hanging pitifully from his tail.
He succeeded so well, my father, creating a wonderful Christmas for his family and for himself, he never guessed that somewhere inside me, something was missing.
At 22, I started advertising to my family that I’d discovered my Jewish identity. I got work teaching English in the most conservative Orthodox society I could find--Hasidic Williamsburg in Brooklyn--and my first day on the job happened to be Sunday, Dec. 25.
On the car ride going back to Connecticut a few days before the holiday, I made my announcement: I was not going to join the family this year for Christmas morning festivities.
I remember now (with sorrow) how my father gripped the steering wheel and spun his head around. “Sarah!” It was as if he’d been struck. “What do you mean?”
“I got a job teaching English, and it starts Dec. 25,” I explained proudly.
“But Sarah! This is a family tradition! We’re always together on this day. You can’t do that!”
“Oh, yes, I can,” I shot back, my voice rising. “Christmas is a Christian holiday and we’re not Christian. I’m Jewish and so are you!”
I did go to my first day of work, and all the little girls seemed to enjoy the class, though the principal fired me politely when I showed up the next morning. Evidently some parents had complained that the new English teacher had had their daughters memorize a strange, Gentile-sounding song about some girl named Sally going out with a young man.
I’ve got a bonnet trimmed in blue/Do you wear it?/Yes I do!
My parents would have joined right in. That song was one of our family traditions, dating back to my mother’s Utah childhood.
I shared it with my new charges with pleasure and all their sweet and vivid voices had rung out.
When do you wear it?/When I can./When I go out with my young man!
Little did I know, coming from a family whose Christmas tree was at that moment standing in all its splendor in our living room, that little girls named Raizie and Feiga and Sorale from old Hasidic families had never heard of girls called Sally. Nor do they know what’s so great about young men, much less that young ladies “go out” with them.
My shame was great. I had lost Christmas with my father and the Hasidim in Brooklyn too. My show of independence had been a sham and the Jewishness I was claiming as my own was not mine at all.
My own children haven’t had to go through this particular form of confused identity, this divided sense of self, this standing on the outside looking in. The rituals they have come to love are unequivocally their own.
They do not share my persistent sense of loss, when Dec. 25 comes around, loss not of the Christian holiday that as a child I once so loved, but of the father who never knew we could have had our own magic, every Friday night.
That’s when Jews set apart one day each week to bring parents and children together--no matter what, kids, you can count on it--with special linen on the table, and singing and candlelight.