TORN!...

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:             Torn!...

We find ourselves, at this juncture in time, a short while removed from the Holiday Season that renders 
Christians utterly jubilant...  at least for a brief period just prior to, on the two special days of the actual event, and in some cases for the week that follows into the eve of and the start of a New Year. 

Decorated House!

Many of us, I'm certain -- myself included -- find reasons to decry the Season for its orgy of spending, its specious bloom of "good cheer," the multiplicity of artifices, idols, iconic representations, yes, and also that profusion of electric lighting intended, we're often told, to brighten the drabness of winter.   Or else to inculcate, many would
insist, a belief system with appropriate symbols of the "true meaning..."   

  

I was raised by a gentile father and a Jewish mother; a fact that to this day tends to confound and confuse my sense of self-identity, my psychic awareness!  I'm TORN!

I often tell SweetHeart, my life partner and the love of my life, that I intend to allow the Jewish side of my persona to prevail during the Christian / Christmas holidays.  SweetHeart demurs.  "You were raised Christian," she argues.  "You have the Christmas tradition in your bone marrow.  Whether or not you accept its mythology, its religious significance or the pageant of the Santa-infused idea of an anti-religious feast day...  Doesn't matter.  We're celebrating Christmas, as if we are true believers, or merely Santa-obsessed revelers.  And that's the end of it!" she states demandingly, and quite forcefully.

I groan acceptingly, if grudgingly!  But, still, I'm TORN, I tell you, and I tell her, and everyone in my family, myself...   An old friend told me often, "Your face is the map of Israel."  My neighbor who is a Jew and who understands my matrilineal heritage, insists, "Then you're Jewish, sonny (she's a bit older than me!).  If you wanted, you could

emigrate to Israel where you'd be immediately accepted and with full Israeli / Jewish citizenship."  I try to find my passport (but furtively!)...

A neighborhood rabbi, for whom I wrote a personal history (needed for a chaplaincy quest!), revealed my story, my lineage to his colleague, a proselytizing rabbi.  The latter appears at my door with some frequency -- mainly, I think, on Jewish feast days.  He tries valiantly to bring me into the light, into the fold.  I resist.  I've been too far down a different pathway, and, for the past many years, I've practiced no form of religion!  None! 

Undaunted by my failure to respond to the rabbi's inexorable efforts, he brings me Chanukah candles, boxes of them, "gelt" in the form of foil-wrapped chocolates, 

dreidels, boxes of matzah and other Jewish gifts and artifacts.  He once appeared at my door, invited himself in and placed tefillins (phylacteries) on my head and arm.  He blesses me.  He brings his children to sing Hebrew songs.  I continue to resist...  

(I have boxes of unopened Chanukah candles; of the opened boxes, I bring some of the colorful content to birthday parties...  just in case!  You never know...  possibly the party host is experiencing a regrettable paucity of candles!  One likes to come prepared!)    

Still, in all, I guess I must confess to a certain and thinly veiled delight in The Season, particularly when the shopping and the (ugh) mall visits and the spending have all  finally, at last!, yielded to the actual Eve and the family celebration that commences with song and greetings and expressions of love and welcome.  (I grumble and make sour faces to disguise my delight, however!).  

We order beautiful pizzas from our, and my, favorite parlor.  It's a once-a-year indulgence and our family's principal Christmas Eve repast.  And salad, loaded with pepperoni, spicy peppers and other tasty ingredients.  (I pick off the cheese cubicles...  I don't care much for cheese cubicles or other forms of that specific dairy comestible!)

We chat endlessly, share "What's new's...  and What have you been doing lately's and Tell me about your life and recent adventure's...  How's your work coming along's..."  We stuff ourselves with the aforementioned edibles, sing more Christmas songs.  Our daughters bring their ukuleles and song sheets, and we warble on, harmonizing to familiar favorites.  The house fairly rings with music and song.  Wonderful stuff, in all, a really terrific day surrounded by and among the people we love best in the world.  (I check my online bank balance frequently!!)

 

Finally, we remove piles of gifts from beneath the "gorgeously adorned" artificial tree and distribute them to the celebrants gathered round the drawing room and its wonderfully effective gas fireplace.  

Following the gift-giving element with its frenetic ripping and tearing of holiday wrappings (I try to salvage the paper like my mother taught me...  but to no avail!), we sing more tunes, drink celebratory artificial wine-like juices, toast one another again and again, walk the dogs (there are two of them, one each in our children's families -- Petey and Yoshie, both male canines!), or sit and sip and nibble the endless cookies and gingerbread effigies and salted nuts.  (I'm particularly fond of mixed nuts and Virginia peanuts...  I tend overdo the nut thing; a flaw in my character, I suppose...)  

As if the joyous celebration at SweetHeart's and my family home isn't enough, at approximately 6:00 PM we pack up our necessaries, our "dish or dishes to pass" and repair to the home of our niece.  She and her husband have a large dwelling with a subterrranean space where the younger revelers gather to "talk treason" and to remove themselves from parental interference.  The food is always plentiful and "nummers" as my dear departed mother-in-law would say -- her word for yummy.  

Eventually, following this grand reunion with hosts of cousins, grand nieces and nephews, other relatives and friends, as the clock alarms us (particularly me as "I should be in bed by now!"...) with its reading, we begin to "Welp," my brilliant son-in-law's coinage for "I've had it.  I'm tired and it's time to go!"  (Another translation is, "Well, I see by my watch or my Cellular time reading that's it way past time to get the hell out of here!"). 

As I now reflect on the Season just past, I smile, or, more accurately, effect a silly grin and remind myself it's over for another full year.  Hooray!  Next year, I'm adopting my Jewish half, and I'll brook no objections from any quarter.  I mean it!  (Fat Chance...  Yeah, like that's gonna happen Man, Dude, Bro...  I like to use all three!).  See ya next year, Santa, you fat old obnoxious, red-nosed bankrupting jerk!!  

Humbly Submitted, 01-05-2022 -- by Joel K.