Non-Holiday

I'm blogging on Christmas Day. I may be the only person blogging on Christmas Day (though I doubt it). That's the thing about growing up the lone Jewish kid on the block... Christmas Day becomes the big, boring, nothing holiday. It's a non-holiday. For you gentiles (I feel that if someone else is allowed to refer to me as a "heathen", I'm allowed to refer to all of you goyim as gentiles) it's all hyped about church and presents and dinner and family. For us Jews, it's enforced imprisonment. Due to the sheer absence of things to do and places to go, we are driven to spend the day doing absolutely nothing with each other. Your holiday effectively becomes my day of torture. You may be enduring family-hell as well, but at least your hell is encased by an allegedly joyful, spiritual and religious event (although it's to be noted that the commercialization of Christmas is so extreme that the meaning may have been lost long ago). There is food and candlelight and sparkly trees and wrapping paper. I've got Ghostbusters and a box of Kung Pow Chicken. And my mother, who will not go away, crabby because she ate too much at the holiday party last night and now feels that she's obese. Because there's no other distraction, I get to hear about it. All day.

Hopefully this puts things in perspective for all of you having doubts and frustrations this holiday season. If my gut-wrenching boredom and misery has made at least one person feel better about his/her life (whether "heathen" or "gentile"), my day will have not been an entire waste of oxygen. So Happy Holidays to all. May your feast, whether Kung-Pow or Rack of Lamb be warm and filling.


[It should be noted that when I refer to myself as a Jew, these days I consider it more of a cultural self-identification than a religious one. I am not a religious person. If you want to get technical, I'm probably more Agnostic than anything else. I've found, however, (as most people do) that it is very hard to separate one's self entirely from her childhood environment and family ties.Besides... I'm partial to lighting lots of candles.]