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Oy to the World

Lisa Nee of Madison, a writer and president of Allen/Nee Productions, writes an occasional column, Such is Life, for Shore Publishing; in this installment, she writes about life in a mixed-faith family.

Prologue

“Never?” I asked

“Never,” he answered.

Could I be that naïve? I had worked in four different large cities, at this moment Manhattan; been to Europe and Russia; but it wasn’t until our first Christmas together that I fully comprehended my boyfriend, Jeff, had never decorated a Christmas tree.

I knew he grew up in a Jewish household in Brooklyn. I saw firsthand the plastic menorah with rusted sockets and fraying electrical wires kept in his parents’ Florida garage. A prominently displayed, professionally bound photo album was evidence of a bar mitzvah. He ate, and liked, gefilte fish! Yet, he seemed so culturally fluid. I thought he must have found himself in front of at least one tree in need of holiday bling.

I, in contrast, was raised an Irish Catholic, in a small town in Minnesota, on the banks of the Mississippi, where my father was mayor and my mother often appeared in an annual performance of A Christmas Carol. Even the year our home burned and we lived in a trailer, we made space for some kind of Tannenbaum.

It seems as cosmopolitan as he and I thought we were, we were sadly lacking in a cultural diversity of holiday traditions. That was about to change.

Part One: The History of Western Civilization Can’t Kill a Cockroach, but a Vacuum Will Buy You Time

We bought a tree from a street vendor on the Upper East Side and lugged it up the two flights of steps to our apartment, which, despite its decrepit condition, retained a little romance being situated directly above a semi-famous restaurant called Serendipity. The tiny apartment had no storage, so all decorations would need to be disposable. I strung the popcorn, hung some candy canes, and tucked in a few mandarins, plump with cloves. The effect was simple, pretty, and fragrant.

A few hours later...

‘Twas the night before tomorrow, when all through the house, creatures were stirring, and it wasn’t a mouse. I flicked on the lights near to where Oh Tanenbaum stood and what to my wondering eyes should appear but some very large bugs almost the size of reindeer, scampering across the floor. I grabbed the closest thing I could find, which happened to be very dense, heavy copy of the book The History of Western Civilization, and dropped it on the nearest herd of vermin. My scream came when I noticed the branches shaking with movement.

Jeff, now at my side, took one look at the vibrating tree and proclaimed, “Cockroaches!”

Having never been acquainted with a cockroach, I took his word for it. The food-festooned-fir was the calling card for a veritable cockroach banquet.

“Dear Lord,” I exclaimed, “Where did they all come from?”

“I’m guessing from the restaurant,” he yelled from over his shoulder as he dashed to the closet.

Jeff returned with an ancient Hoover vacuum he had found on the street and refurbished. He fired up the relic and, with the deftness of all Three Musketeers, sucked everything off the tree: popcorn, candy canes, and cockroaches. I looked down at my feet where The History of Western Civilization still lay and, horrified, saw the cockroaches I thought to be crushed, emerge. Zoro of the Hoover Hose made haste and touché, they too were dealt with. We stumbled back out the apartment, and down the two flights, where we left mangled tree and the mighty Hoover on the street.

Still to this day, I never hear the word “serendipity” without also seeing cockroaches.

Part Two: You Can Take the Boy Out of Brooklyn But...

A few days later Jeff and I were at my parents’ house in Minnesota, (only fair, I spent Thanksgiving in Florida with his).

My mother, known to everyone as “Ms. Kay” and I were in the basement when we heard the front door open, and then abruptly slam, followed by Jeff shouting, “Ms. Kay, you better get up here!”

My mother and I raced up stairs to find Jeff peering through a curtain in the kitchen window.

“There’s something going on out there,” he said in an urgent voice.

My mother opened the door and said, “Well, isn’t that nice, it’s the High School German Club carolers.”

The youthful voices of Silent Night, sung in German wafted in...”Stille Nacht! Heilig Nacht!” To a boy, raised in a Jewish neighborhood in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, when a dozen or so hearty, blue-eyed blonds arrive at your door singing a song in German that, to the untrained ear, sounds a lot like, Kristallnacht, it cannot be a good sign. My mother invited the carolers in for hot chocolate to show him they meant no harm.

Part Three: Oy to the World.

It is our family tradition to attend midnight Mass in Minneapolis, in what happens to be the oldest basilica in the United States. There are only two basilicas in the upper Midwest and this one has my uncle’s artwork mounted above its doors. We convinced Jeff, now calmed down after the caroler incident, that he should join us, if only to experience the architecture. No matter what your beliefs, the midnight Mass in the basilica is spectacular. It begins in complete darkness, enveloped in incense; visitors pack the pews, as much for warmth as for seating. The bells of the tower begin to chime and at the stroke of midnight the lights in the basilica burst to life. A procession of musicians that has been for years led by a sturdy, buxom woman who, defying the laws of nature, never seems to age and can shake what must be a 30-pound, upright tower of bells, begins to the tune of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful.”

Jeff leans over and whispers, “Boy, these Catholics can really put on a show.”

Our favorite part of the evening is when the priest invites everyone to share a sign of peace, which in our family is a group hug. I could tell Jeff was caught up in the moment, so much so that when it was time for the closing hymn, “Joy to the World,” it looked as though he would join in. The glorious organ boomed out the first introduction stanza, followed by the second, and as the third introduction stanza began, Jeff belted out in his best baritone, “Joy to the World!” effectively singing a solo, a full stanza ahead of the congregation. Being 6’4”, towering above my genetically short family, it was not possible to shirk from his performance. A few smiling congregants looked his way and he made a gesture that I’ve come to know means, “Oy.”

That night, Jeff proposed in my childhood home, lit only by a fire and the twinkling of the Christmas tree lights.

Part Four: Mamma Said There’d Be Days Like This

It’s a quarter of a century later, and we have moved three times since that first Christmas in the tiny apartment above Serendipity. We now celebrate Christmas in Connecticut, Madison to be precise.

My husband looks up from his phone and says, “That’s a pretty sad looking tree.”

It is a sad kind of tree and not in the Charlie Brown Christmas, kind-of-quaint sad way. The tree was bought in haste because the three sons that formerly haggled over of type, height, and shape, are but blurs. Jobs, girlfriends, finals are too much of a distraction.

The tree is tall enough, but the branches we expected to come down and plump out its silhouette have stayed defiantly tucked-up tight to the trunk, as if still wrapped in invisible netting. Could this tree possibly be sensing my apathy towards decorating it?

Ms. Kay, gone these eight years, said there’d be days like this. There were years when so many of us wanted to prettify the tree it would topple in our enthusiasm. The boys, so enamored with its beauty, would lay blankets down and fall asleep looking up at the lights.

But decorate it alone I will, because for all the fruitcake and gefilte fish, dreidels in the advent calendar, and “Oys” to the world, families are bound by their traditions, by their shared stories. The world may deliver kicks in the shins, heartache, and listless wanderings, but there should always be a sanctuary where some things remain the same, a place where a tree stands, a mother decorates it, and with a little luck, creates a little magic that brings everyone home.