Some Things That I Hate About Christmas ...
One thing that I hate about Christmas is that I no longer know whether it's o.k. to wish people a"Merry Christmas" or not. It just confuses me when my Jewish colleagues wish me a"Merry Christmas." I have no doubt about whether the wish is sincerely offered, but then should I return it? My wish for a"Merry Christmas" for my Jewish, Muslim, and secular colleagues is a benign one. The day on which we Christians celebrate the most unbelievable thing that we believe is a day on which I wish joy, happiness, and peace for all of us. O. K.?
Beyond the meta-things I hate about Christmas are the practical ones. It brings on a domestic crisis almost every year because I grew up in a traditional German-American family in which all of the paraphernalia of celebration are supposed to appear miraculously at the last minute, as if Santa Claus brought them all. That could work reasonably well in a turn of the century house that had a front parlor and a family parlor. The front parlor could be closed off to the children until Christmas morning, when it was opened for them to gaze on a finely decorated tree with presents all miraculously appearing. My capacity for producing miracles -- never very spectacular -- seems to lessen with each passing year.
You take the Christmas tree decorations, for example. We have a fairly substantial collection of them. They include a number of mercury glass colored balls, about 10" in circumference. They came from my grandmother's family, imported from France or Germany many years ago. Then, there's also the wonderful creche that is inherited from my parents. The lovely Italian made figures are the ones that lived under our Christmas tree when I was a boy. We weren't then much bothered by the fact that my brother's Lionel train track ran around the tree in front of the creche. In fact, we used to like to give Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus a train ride around the tree.
In recent years, we've been storing the Christmas tree decorations on two shelves high above the basement steps. They're safely out of the way there, but when I do have to put them up or take them down, it's a perilous venture. I actually have to put a step ladder on the basement steps, put one foot up on a nearby fuse box, and heist these heavy boxes up or down from the shelves. That's gotten increasingly problematic each year. And, you guessed it, this year, somehow, the stepladder and a box went tumbling down the stairs. I don't know how I managed not to tumble after them. But it was the box that included my grandmother's mercury glass Christmas tree ornaments and the creche of childhood memory. They were very carefully packed and, believe me, I was very relieved that nothing was broken. Had one of those mercury glass balls broken, I'd wish that it had been me, instead. I hate it when a box of Christmas tree ornaments tumbles down the basement steps.
The other thing that I hate about Christmas is that I just can't make the d____d tree stay up! That, my friends, is a long story. I can remember about four times in my family's life together when the tree has fallen over. Almost inevitably, I start swearing and taking the baby Jesus's name in vain. Father's name, too. I hate it when that happens. It's worse when the tree is fully decorated. Then you have the sad reports of what ornaments were lost in the crash. One of my daughters will barely put up with my re-iterations of"Up, down, and all around" as a way of reminding them that, if you put all the heavy ornaments on the front of the tree, the weight of them will almost certainly pull it over. Well, this year, fortunately, the d____d thing fell over before any ornaments were on it. No problem, just a little water damage. I wired the d____d thing to a chain hanging from the ceiling. That made it impossible for us to top it with an angel this year, but if this tree falls over again this year it will have to bring a piece of the ceiling with it.
Merry Christmas, everyone.