Two things about this sentence didn’t work for me. The first was probably unusual. I didn’t miss Christmas because I hardly knew anyone who celebrated it or what it was all about. I lived in the Jewish end of town, thanks to restrictive covenants. Of course nobody thought of it as the Jewish end of town, but my school was almost all Jewish, since the many Catholic kids in the area crammed their oh so many baby boomer bodies into the local parish school. We didn’t know them. The Protestant kids had the chance to learn about being a minority. We were fascinated by the blue-lit aluminum tree-like shape that revolved in Jimmy’s living room. He got questions about his family’s unusual alternative observance. Where was he going to hear that again?

And yes a few families toyed with Chanukah bushes—also aluminum and also lit blue. I shopped the idea gingerly at my house and dropped it like a hot latke when my Mother erupted.

What Christmas did mean for me was a dressed-up, lunched-out trip downtown to see the Christmas decorations the Friday after Thanksgiving. There was nothing black about it, except the 4:30 sky on the L ride home.

The second fiction was more subtle and has gotten even more confusing. Chanukah was a refreshingly unreligious holiday in my observant home. We played intense games of dreidel, ate a lot of chocolate, lit candles, sang and exchanged socks and underwear, mostly. There were a few dreidels and stars hung in our apartment. It wasn’t dressed up like a Christmas competitor or a consolation prize. It was something most kids in the neighborhood did and, while I had a slightly more old-fashioned version of it than many, it was a serviceable small holiday.

Growing up eventually meant making some choices. I had boyfriends, a husband and lots of friends who weren’t Jewish. To tree or not to tree? I lived in houses where trees happened, I took strong measures against trees, I acquiesced in trees when my pre-ex plead his case that this had been what was wrong with the whole marriage (reductionist crazy talk and the women who let them—another subject.) I have decided that trees, like so many things, might be the subject of passionate position until one actually has a little perspective on life (and a little less passion in general. Hey, it’s a tree.)

I had years of alternating Scroogedom and buy-in. And then I finally achieved enlightenment (well, on the Christmas issue, anyway.)

This is the best time of the year to be Jewish. There are the neutrals and the positives. The neutrals: I’m not mangled by the mind-body-wallet suck of the retail holiday. My presents are restricted to wine, chocolate and cash. It’s an unusually good time to buy the first two; I buy bars and bottles by the dozen or half-dozen as I do my ordinary shopping so I have a bar or bottle to hand to anyone whenever the mood strikes me. I don’t wrap.

I don’t have to worry about the compromise or confusion of a significant spiritual moment with the financial, familial, logistical, decorative, sartorial, alimentary or entertainment requirements. I don’t have to do anything about any of these.

But I can. I’m often invited to gatherings where I can dress up or down as necessary or desired, make or purchase foodstuffs to share, grab a bar or bottle on my way out the door, and catch up with old friends, meet new ones or tear around like a crazy person. Or not.

On the positive side, this is a time when most people around me are so harried and hassled, preoccupied and stressed, over-committed and out of their element or trying madly to escape their element, and engaged in such strange and strenuous activities that no one would notice if I should happen to space out, nap, introspect or otherwise engage less in the world than I might normally feel pressure to do. In other words, when one is not part of the increasing spin, that spin itself can allow for a bit of a holiday. It’s a foul time to travel, yes, but it’s a fine time to nest.

There are a few negatives, of course: sound pollution in stores and offices; traffic jams; that travel issue… The incessant mostly awful music is good reminder to avoid shopping, the travel is reinforced by the climate and the pricing–now that I’m liberated from the school calendar I hardly mind. And the traffic? Well it’s one really lousy thing, isn’t it. I can’t have it all. But that sense of being the other? Each year it seems like a more comfortable quilt to wrap around me as I nestle into the window seat and count my chocolate bars. We Jews don’t encourage conversion, but if you’re crazy and frazzled? Well it might be one way to find a little peace next year.

*DISCLAIMER: I’m not launching in on some theological diatribe, so if you’re looking for conversion or even conversation in that direction, I must disappoint and I’m not willing to engage.

I had no idea I was hauling around tears.
I didn’t know to feel their incremental gain.
I didn’t hear them slosh from side to side
when I rolled over.

I learned this in my lover’s arms.
Powerful arms—pale and cool.
He taught me to open screaming, bleeding parts of me—
un-named parts and unfelt hurts.

He touched fine hairs down my ear canal and drew saltwater.
His chest opened to the floods
and he helped label the dusty boxes of memories
crammed into the rafters of my heart.

Intensity was his mainstay; he drew mine.
We would strip away the world
and became so vulnerable.
These times felt rich and real.

When I felt seen in his eyes, I knew I’d not been seen before.
This is what I’d lacked most; this is what I wanted most.
It pricked a new, insatiable hunger.
This was chocolate for my soul.

One morning, he ran his hand across my chest.
As it slowed, the last two fingers
brushed a bubble of sadness
affixed to my ribcage.

I pressed his fingers and the sac emptied through my eyes.
The world stood still as my face flooded again and again.
It was done. That file of hurt was deleted:
un-opened, unread, released.