Santas, ye be warned.
Every year my neighbors go crazy about Christmas decorations. I live in a mostly Latino neighborhood, and I tell ya, there's no such thing as simple white lights round here.
Nope, god bless my ethnic neighbors, they like the swag. There are Santas and moving reindeer and stuff on chimneys and colored lights and inflatable snowglobes and grinches and any character with a santa hat and they are all totally gorgeous and glorious. I love them. This year there was apparently a sale at Big Lots on the Santa-on-a-Motorcycle installation and I've seen six, two in one yard. One house has SIX Santas, people, SIX - all doing different stuff.
My favorite house has these little light-up Santa heads on stakes. It reminds me of pirate warnings - "Santas, ye be warned." I keep forgetting to take my camera with me on our dog walks, but trust me, it's awesome.
Here's the thing. I LOVE Christmas decorations. I've never denied it. They're fantastic. But they are not, as we have discussed, Jewish.
And Greg knows this. So you may imagine my surprise when, after I expressed excitement that over Thanksgiving all our neighbors would be putting up the light show (my next door neighbor's lawn was literally covered in crates full of lights already), he said "That's funny, coming from a girl who won't let me decorate for the holidays."
Um. We discussed this. Like, before we got married. WITH THE RABBI.
Not like I'm that Jewish all the time, but the kids are getting raised Jewish and that was agreed. Greg was even happy about it. It's not that he was raised Christian, he was raised kind of nothing. Sometimes they had a tree, sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they had lights, sometimes they didn't. There just weren't any traditions.
We have traditions. Candles. Latkes. Songs in Hebrew. Dreidle tournaments till all hours. These things are fun! They're not lights and trees, but they're our own and they're fun. And we can still drive around and look at the lights, and decorate trees at friends' houses like I did when I was a kid. (Am I the only Jewish kid that didn't grow up with Santa envy?)
But the thing is, there's no decorating "for the holidays." If you're decorating for the holidays, it's Christmas. Because Jews just don't do it. We only erect big ole Menorahs in malls because Chabad is all uppity. Most of us just don't give a shit.
And there are no winter wonderland scenes. Come on! How is that Hannukah? You think a Macabbee ever saw snow?
I suppose I could hang bottles of olive oil all over the house. Those would illuminate nicely, no?
*sigh* This seems like such a stupid fight.
Turns out the good compromise is to teach Greg all the Hebrew songs, and to take him to temple at least once or twice so he understands the story of what the hell is going on. He just feels disconnected from it. So we need to make it OUR tradition and not MY tradition.
Which is fine.
And I told him we could have lights.
In the sukkah.
Nope, god bless my ethnic neighbors, they like the swag. There are Santas and moving reindeer and stuff on chimneys and colored lights and inflatable snowglobes and grinches and any character with a santa hat and they are all totally gorgeous and glorious. I love them. This year there was apparently a sale at Big Lots on the Santa-on-a-Motorcycle installation and I've seen six, two in one yard. One house has SIX Santas, people, SIX - all doing different stuff.
My favorite house has these little light-up Santa heads on stakes. It reminds me of pirate warnings - "Santas, ye be warned." I keep forgetting to take my camera with me on our dog walks, but trust me, it's awesome.
Here's the thing. I LOVE Christmas decorations. I've never denied it. They're fantastic. But they are not, as we have discussed, Jewish.
And Greg knows this. So you may imagine my surprise when, after I expressed excitement that over Thanksgiving all our neighbors would be putting up the light show (my next door neighbor's lawn was literally covered in crates full of lights already), he said "That's funny, coming from a girl who won't let me decorate for the holidays."
Um. We discussed this. Like, before we got married. WITH THE RABBI.
Not like I'm that Jewish all the time, but the kids are getting raised Jewish and that was agreed. Greg was even happy about it. It's not that he was raised Christian, he was raised kind of nothing. Sometimes they had a tree, sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they had lights, sometimes they didn't. There just weren't any traditions.
We have traditions. Candles. Latkes. Songs in Hebrew. Dreidle tournaments till all hours. These things are fun! They're not lights and trees, but they're our own and they're fun. And we can still drive around and look at the lights, and decorate trees at friends' houses like I did when I was a kid. (Am I the only Jewish kid that didn't grow up with Santa envy?)
But the thing is, there's no decorating "for the holidays." If you're decorating for the holidays, it's Christmas. Because Jews just don't do it. We only erect big ole Menorahs in malls because Chabad is all uppity. Most of us just don't give a shit.
And there are no winter wonderland scenes. Come on! How is that Hannukah? You think a Macabbee ever saw snow?
I suppose I could hang bottles of olive oil all over the house. Those would illuminate nicely, no?
*sigh* This seems like such a stupid fight.
Turns out the good compromise is to teach Greg all the Hebrew songs, and to take him to temple at least once or twice so he understands the story of what the hell is going on. He just feels disconnected from it. So we need to make it OUR tradition and not MY tradition.
Which is fine.
And I told him we could have lights.
In the sukkah.