I'm a Christmas Shnorer--Rhymes with "Menorah"

Ever since I converted to Judaism some 15 years ago, people always ask whether I miss celebrating Christmas. Indeed it's usually the first question they ask when they discover I'm a convert. I try to repress the enthusiasm in my reply: "No--actually it's a huge relief."

They look bewildered, and even a little hurt. Then I explain that I'm relieved not because I dislike Christmas--but because I LOVE Christmas. And now I am free to love it in a way that, frankly, only a Jew can.

My children point out (rather resentfully) that at least I grew up with Christmas. It's true, and what's more, my mother did it beautifully. Tree, fire, stockings, roast turkey, a satisfying pile of presents for every member of the family, including the dog and budgie. But having grown up with it, I know what it's really like.

First, the whole Inchon-like planning of Christmas invariably falls to the mother. (I've always wondered why feminists fail to include "celebration management" in their lists of complaints against men--it's a far bigger and more exhausting task than loading the dishwasher.) Beginning weeks in advance, the mother must coordinate the arrival of relatives, tally supplies, and review the timing of events again and again. She must shop and re-shop until she is certain the allotment of all the presents is "fair." Children possess the gimlet eye of a gangster's moll. They know exactly how much a gift costs and whether their brothers or sisters have received something "better." You may complain all you like about the "materialism ruining the spirit of the holiday." It is the mother who knows: Without gift parity there can be no family harmony.

Even after the tree is decorated and the egg nog poured, the mother can't relax. Every few moments she must jump up to check the turkey or prevent the Lab from eating the candy canes on the low-hanging branches. The phone rings with news of sick or late-arriving guests; plans are regrouped, chairs added or removed from the table. Someone is dispatched to the 24-hour 7/11 for tinned cranberry sauce because somehow--can you believe it?--Mom forgot to make cranberry sauce.

All these worries are supposed to be put aside for church service on Christmas Eve or day. Here--at last!--is the "soul" of the holiday. Or so you hope. Maybe the priest has decided to preach at extra length about global warming. At my family's church, the minister used to take peculiar pleasure in making us sing unpopular carols--as if avoiding the popular ones was somehow more "improving." The congregation would mumble grumpily through the unfamiliar tunes. Our "short" Christmas Eve service would last well past midnight. By then, we children would be clawing at my mother's nylons:What if we'd MISSED Santa??

Finally comes the great morning itself. Months of work are consumed in about eight minutes. A carnage of gift wrapping glitters across the carpet. The children, ungrateful little beasts, immediately declare they're "bored." The turkey is, like, 72 hours away. Dad is crumpled into the corner of the sofa in an improbable sweater. Mom's exhausted--bleary-eyed from staying up until 1 a.m. to wrap the last presents, fill the stockings, and ensure the turkey was ready to be placed in the oven at 7 a.m. She declares the holiday "started" and reaches for the booze....

But as a Jew--ah, as a Jew!--all of this is unknown. We've completed our holiday ordeal earlier in the fall (and no one writes cheerful songs about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, whose message can be summed up as: Happy New Year--You Should Be So Lucky). In most years, Hannukah and its attendant stress has passed by December 25 (whose dumb idea was it, anyway, to try make this otherwise minor holiday compete with Christmas?! Have you ever tried to buy eight presents each for three gimlet-eyed children? Is a Polly Pocket shopping mall the equivalent of one professional-size football?). Thus for us, the Christmas season is one happy loop of Irving Berlin. When the pressure is off, you can actually roast chestnuts over an open fire. There's time!

I joke to my Christian friends that I have become a Christmas schnorer--Yiddish for moocher. I sip mulled wine in their living rooms and admire their trees. I ask their children what they expect from Santa. I enjoy the festively decorated malls--which I am not dashing through with lists in triplicate. I hum along to "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" for the hundredth time while on hold. I line my mantle with the Christmas cards we love to receive but feel no obligation to send out ourselves. At night I drive my kids through the neighborhood to marvel at the lights. Every year we look forward to the "live creche"--real donkeys!--at our local Baptist church.

Then, when Christmas Day arrives, we extend our shnoring to my half of the family. Our contribution is to supply the traditional Jewish feast of take-out Chinese food on Christmas Eve (a tradition my mother has enthusiastically embraced). The kids get their vicarious Santa fix. When the holiday is over, there's no post-holiday deflation--no brown pine needles to sweep up, no decorations to pack, no lingering sense that it wasn't "done right" or could have been done better.

The children might moan, but for me it's bliss.