Festive expedience (LINK)
December 24th 2007 06:57
Being Jewish, Christmas time for me is like that boy I had a crush on when I was sixteen who never ever looked at me. I’ve always thought it was cruel of my folks to have denied me what looks like the biggest party on earth, every year for the rest of one’s life. I walk through the shopping malls at this time of year, salivating at the little Christmas fairy lights, the tinsel, the Christmas decorations and nurse an ongoing wound at the lifetime exclusion my Jewishness has foistered upon me in this Western society where Christmas is King.
But thankfully I have so many Christian friends that at the very least, I am able to become part of the consumer-frenzy of picking gifts and wrapping them up and seeing the delight on faces as presents are torn open. Sometimes, I even score a ‘reciprocation’ gift. This year, I got a pedicure voucher, a bottle of red wine, a lovely re-gifted candle which came in a fancy box with a little diamond handle on it, and some body shop goodies. And every time I get a gift at this time of year, a Christmas gift no less, I feel that childhood injury of exclusion softening. I do however recognize this as a form of festive expedience on my part. I’m not exactly handing out gifts as a way of guilting my neighbours and friends into reciprocating, but I do so love a Christmas present.
And we’re spending Christmas with our friends the Steventons, good English people who love a glass of bubbly and a meal that lasts eight hours. They have a hot tub and some oysters. They have karaoke and Monty Python.
It’s going to be a bumper Christmas.
Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate it by dint of birth. Or like me, as an outsider, blessedly inveigled into the festivities.
Tomorrow starts the serious blogging.
I'll be keeping you up to speed with secret writers business.
Keep safe,
Jo
But thankfully I have so many Christian friends that at the very least, I am able to become part of the consumer-frenzy of picking gifts and wrapping them up and seeing the delight on faces as presents are torn open. Sometimes, I even score a ‘reciprocation’ gift. This year, I got a pedicure voucher, a bottle of red wine, a lovely re-gifted candle which came in a fancy box with a little diamond handle on it, and some body shop goodies. And every time I get a gift at this time of year, a Christmas gift no less, I feel that childhood injury of exclusion softening. I do however recognize this as a form of festive expedience on my part. I’m not exactly handing out gifts as a way of guilting my neighbours and friends into reciprocating, but I do so love a Christmas present.
It’s going to be a bumper Christmas.
Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate it by dint of birth. Or like me, as an outsider, blessedly inveigled into the festivities.
Tomorrow starts the serious blogging.
Keep safe,
Jo
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