alexist

I was out shopping the other day, and one of the stores had a leaflet for "kosher Christmas hampers". Only in the UK! I still can't get over the fact that it's acceptable for Jews to celebrate Christmas here, and it's my 3rd one. In the US it would be the mark of being assimilated beyond belief--forget kosher butchers selling turkeys in December. It probably helps that Americans have more than one holiday a year. In the US, we have Thanksgiving for the big family blow-out, and we have a decent national holiday (sorry, Guy Fawkes doesn't quite measure up to Independence Day). Christmas in the UK is exhausting, because it's the only really big holiday everyone does.

For 26 years, I successfully ignored Christmas. (At least twice, I managed to completely forget what day it was!) It was irrelevant to my life. A few years, family friends had a big get together, because there was nothing much else to do, but it wasn't Christmassy--we ate brisket for goodness sakes. Other years it was the New York Jewish ritual of Chinese food and sometimes the movies, where you invariably ran into all the other Jews in town. I enjoyed the season but it was in a spectator way. New York does do Christmas well, and when it's so dark and cold, the lights and the store displays and so on are pretty to look at. I was never jealous of Christian kids. I felt sorry for them, because they had so few holidays compared to us. (Plus, almost all the non-Jewish kids I knew were Catholic, mostly Italian, and they eat salt cod for Christmas Eve. You can be jealous of the chocolate and the presents, but baccalà isn't going to cut it.)

Now that I'm married to someone who grew up celebrating Christmas, though, it's a bit different. And hence this year's dilemma: because it's so close to my due date, we can't go down to my in-laws for it. So now I have to decide what I'll do for it. I refuse to have a tree or lights or anything but I don't want to deprive Neil completely! I'll roast a duck (possibly bad karma: when Neil was born, he came early, before Christmas, and his dad burnt the Christmas duck :) ) but I don't know what else. Neil says he doesn't want mince pies or Christmas cake or anything... but I feel like I'm depriving him of Christmas, since it's sort of my fault we can't go. (It wouldn't be unsafe; Torbay Hospital has a full maternity unit. But I don't want to risk it.)

In which the populace of Britain completely forgets the day's origins in anti-Catholic prejudice in favour of indulging the nation's love of making loud banging noises. The poor cat is traumatised.

Neil's off at a party in Wimbledon (it involves bridge, so he went alone :) ) and I'm being a lazy lump. I just made more strawberry jello--managed to eat a whole box worth last night (!) Maybe pregnancy is having an effect. Not that I've ever hated strawberry jello, but it's not something I normally polish off.

Ooh, just remembered, must call my grandma...