PeteCarpenter.com

12/27/2006

• As always, Santa was very good to me this year. Maybe it’s because I’m really easy to buy for (anything cooking related or Home Depot related are always safe bets) or maybe it’s because he knows I love Chrismukkah.
• It’s time to go old skool with the grilling. A new Weber One-Touch Silver Charcoal Kettle Grill will soon be filling the neighborhood with the smell of charcoal and wood smoke. I fear that I’ll have a hard time going back to a gas grill, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
• Speaking of grilling, I was allowed to grill the Christmas Eve lobsters this year. Grilling weather on Christmas is something that I can definitely get used to.
• I got a long-coveted B-Side Lounge t-shirt. It looks like a red sox t-shirt, but instead of “BOSTON” it says “BSIDE”, and instead of a MLB logo on the back, it has the silhouette or a bow-tied bartender shaking a cocktail shaker. The B-Side is one of my favorite bars of all time.
• Only I would get excited about a salt cellar, right? But the old was was just getting nasty, and this one looks so sleek.
• I got a deep fryer! Seriously? Yes. I know it seems like we eat all super healthy all of the time, but we also enjoy a good homemade frite with our burgers or mussels. I am very excited about this. I get the feeling that I’m going to try to deep fry a lot of stuff. Pickles, olives, artichokes, Girl Scout cookies, etc.
• Everyone seems to have an opinion about baby names. Our favorite suggestions from Christmas dinner were Priscilla and Luigi. And the best quote of the night: “At what point do you look at a baby and think: Norma.”
• Let’s talk about the fact that the pregnant Lovely Suse is getting hand-me-down clothes from her 16 year old cousin.
• It wouldn’t be Christmas without a new Jamie Oliver book. Jamie’s Italy is his latest. When I see his new books in the store, I don’t even bother buying it because I know I’ll get it for Christmas. I love his books.
• I managed to install a ceiling fan in our bedroom without electrocuting myself and four days later, it still hasn’t fallen and crushed us. We also got real bedroom furniture after years of talking about it. We feel like grownups now!
• My fortune cookie from last night’s Jewish Christmas dinner told me to get up early because today will be a productive day. George waking us up crying at 3:30am took care of that. I think he’s completely overwhelmed with his first Christmas. He was approximately 4,326 toys around the house right now. On the agenda for today: stripping and starting to refinish an old dresser, laundry, grocery shopping, and another attempt at fixing our squeaky hardwood floors. We’ll see how much of that I actually get done. Apparently, I don’t understand the meaning of “vacation”.

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Fill My Stocking with Latkes

Having been raised Jewish, the holiday season had always been a bit of a mixed bag for me growing up. Sure, we had Chanukah, latkes, dreidels, and gifts, but let’s be honest. Christmas blows Chanukah out of the water. Trees, lights, stockings, gifts, songs, cookies, a kick-ass meal, booze, and more gifts. What’s not to like? Oh, there is that whole Jesus thing and the Church thing, but let’s ignore that for a minute.

Growing up, for whatever reason, I resented Christmas. Because it represented something that we didn’t believe in, I felt like it was wrong to do anything associated with it. Singing Christmas Carols? Decorating a tree? Hey, I shouldn’t be doing this! I don’t believe in Jesus! Rudolph on TV? That’s not for me. On and on and on, everything about this season was not for me. A cashier in a store wishes us a Merry Christmas? But we don’t celebrate Christmas. I felt excluded and felt like I was missing out. This stuff looks like fun, right? Some of my earliest memories were of me going to the house of our older neighbor across the street every day so I could turn the lights of her Christmas tree on. I loved it, but it was never anything I could have in my own house. Jews don’t have Christmas trees.

Fast forward 25 years. Having married into a Christmas-celebrating family, my Christmas dreams had finally come true. I got to go buy and decorate my own Christmas tree (topped with a Star if David tree-topper), I got my own stocking, I got to admit that yes, I do enjoy Christmas music, I got to eat Christmas dinner, and I got lots and lots of gifts. It didn’t have to be a religious event, and let’s be honest. these days, very few people are thinking about the real meaning of the holiday. It’s more about family traditions and celebrations. Just like my family has always invited non-Jewish friends to our holiday festivities, it doesn’t have to be a religious experience, and you don’t have to believe in the religious aspects of it to enjoy and appreciate it.

I still hate the malls around the holidays, I still hate being assaulted with Christmas decorations starting in October, I still hate obscenely tacky Christmas decorations on people’s houses and yards, I still hate the ridiculous consumerism that goes on, but I think that feeling is shared by lots of Christmas lovers. Like it or not, Christmas is an American tradition. Just like the 4th of July or Thanksgiving, it’s a holiday that brings people together to celebrate and eat and drink and eat some more. We still celebrate Chanukah, we still light the candles and make latkes, and we still celebrate Jewish Christmas on December 26 (movies and Chinese food), but on December 25, you know where to find me: up to my elbows in wrapping paper, cookies, and Christmas ham, and loving every minute of it. Merry Chrismukkah everybody!

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