Bubby's Christmas

Louise Diamond |

12/22/2007 - 12/23/07

Second Place, adult essay

Louise Diamond uses richly realized dialogue to inject humor and feeling into her remembrance of her grandmother, Bubby — a Jewish immigrant from "the Old Country" — and her family's gradual adaptation to the ways of the Christian majority in the United States. It's the small, telling details and Diamond's affection for them despite their foibles that make both Bubby and the family Diamond marries into memorable.

Bubby hated Christmas. Which, I guess, was understandable, considering she fled the pogroms in "the Old Country" at the turn of the century. "Why vould you vant to join those goyim in worshipping false gods?" she would ask, whenever I posed my request for a Christmas tree. Of course she would say that. She still read the Yiddish newspapers every day. Except for the cowboy shows she watched on television, she hardly even lived in America.

OK, it was the early 1950s, and in Washington, D.C., where I grew up, Jews (and blacks) weren't allowed to buy in certain neighborhoods or join, or even visit, certain country clubs (as I found out one hot summer day, to the chagrin of my host, the ambassador from Norway). Our public-school classroom began each day with the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by the Lord's Prayer and a reading from the Bible. This was way before Hanukkah was given equal time, and before anyone had even heard of Kwanzaa. Christmas was a big deal, and not being part of it meant not being "in." I desperately wanted a Christmas tree.

I tried my best Jewish Princess whining but Dad wouldn't budge. "Bubby wouldn't like it," was always his excuse. With my Mom I tried the old favorite, "But the Goldsteins next door have a Christmas tree!" No deal. I guess she had learned early on not to cross Bubby.

I'll never know what changed, but one year after the usual boring Hanukkah dinner with the same old family friends and dreidl games, my dad said, "OK kids, let's go get a Christmas tree." Maybe he was mad at Bubby for something, or maybe he just felt it would be interesting to defy her for once. We got the biggest, bounciest Christmas tree ever.

Of course, not ever having had a Christmas tree, we had no idea how to decorate it. We set Bubby up in a lawn chair at one end of the den and set to work. Bubby, meanwhile, could be heard muttering, "Oy vey iz mir, Irvink, vhat are you doink? Your dear father of blessed memory vould be turning over in his grave! You vant I should have a heart attack?" One thing Bubby knew was the Jewish guilt thing. Dad ignored her. We all did. Suddenly, in the midst of her babbling, we heard, "Dovidl, no, no — put the red ball over there! Put that shiny thing higher, yes, that's better." We turned to look at her. She continued her muttering, in Yiddish of course.

Next it was, "Vhat kind of a son have I got, he doesn't even know to put the star on the very top. And the tinsel — don't throw it! One by one, little girl, carefully, put each one on just so." Suddenly, we had a sidewalk supervisor who had become an expert in Christmas-tree decoration. She wouldn't come near the tree herself, and God forbid she should actually touch any of the decorations. But from a comfortable distance across the room, and amidst all her complaining, she had very clear ideas about how it should look.

After that we had Christmas trees every year, and Bubby continued her dual roles of decrier and adviser. We learned to live with it. Meanwhile, I continued to substitute "rice" for "Christ" in all the Christmas carols at school, so I wouldn't fall too far into the goyische world. One had to draw the line somewhere.

During these years my brother began his studies to be a doctor. Bubby was in heaven. Her entire immigrant striving had been focused on producing Jewish doctors. Both my father and my uncle had fulfilled her aspirations, and now the next generation too. For me, she only hoped that one day I should marry a Jewish doctl. OK, so I married a half-Jewish social worker, but his father (long dead) had been a prominent Jewish shrink. That should count for something, I thought.

Marriage into that family meant being married into the non-Jewish side, with their rather intense Christmas traditions. Bubby was long gone by then, which was probably a good thing, as it would have given her so much more to kvetch about. Every year the ritual had to be performed exactly the same. The same garlands on the banisters. The same way of decorating the tree. The same guests and the same food at the three sacred meals — Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas morning breakfast, and Christmas Day dinner. I knew I had been fully accepted into the family a few years on when I was allowed to beribbon the holiest of holies, the picture of the dead husband/father that commanded the best view of the tree in the living room.

Christmas morning would have been especially exciting for Bubby. My mother-in-law got up early to make her famous mouth-watering sticky buns and fruit salad. (The first year my husband and I decided — gasp — to buck the expectations and have our own Christmas at home, she graciously sent me the carefully guarded sticky bun recipe, only she also carefully managed to leave out one essential ingredient, insuring her lifetime title as Queen of Christmas. Only years later, shortly before her death and after my divorce, did she finally give up that last ingredient to me.)

Next, we would all troop into the living room, and open the presents one at a time, marveling at each one. No mad dash to get yours, or ripping of paper. Christmas had MEANING in this family. From the decorating extravaganza, the carol singing and church for those who wanted (hardly anyone ever did) the day before, to the sticky-bun-enhanced gift rituals, every step was carefully measured and choreographed. And it all had to be exactly the same every year. When the first grandchild was born — my daughter — the only difference was that she had to wear a little Santa suit on Christmas morning.

I like to imagine Bubby in the midst of that Christmas tradition. She would have sat at the far end of the room, complaining bitterly — "Vhat kind of Jew are you anyway, darlink? My great-granddaughter, sheineh madel, in a Santa suit!? Oy vey!" — and she would have been right in there with my mother-in-law fussing about the decorations. "No, no! The holly looks better over here, and the red bow over there, around the mistletoe."

Bubby would have loved that Christmas.