4 Jews, a Goy, and a Christmas Tree

Christmas has puked all over my living room.

This year, D decided that he wanted to do it "up right" for Christmas. As a Jew, I had no idea what that meant. Growing up, decorating for Hanukkah meant lighting a menorah every night. The candles were small, they lasted maybe an hour. Not much of a Festival of Lights, like that oil that burned so long ago. My mom even put tin foil underneath for easy clean-up. There was no need for watering a plant, sweeping pine needles, or even at times, wrapping gifts. That being said, I thought doing it "up right" would include putting a wreath on our door, or hanging a stocking above our television. It sounded cute.

Instead, it was a production, a fun production, but a production nonetheless.

First, a trip to the garden shop, 4 jews and a goy on a mission to find the PERFECT tree, wreath, roping (wth is that???). We were met with our first decision: What type of tree to get? 5' would be too small, 9' would be too big, what type of tree: Fraser fur? White Pine? After making the tree boy cut the netting, we settled on a 7' FraserFur that smelled Christmas-y enough for D. Plus, we found our wreath, roping, and a stand for the tree. Who knew there was so much to get?

Then I heard this, "Let me clear this out, looks like a squirrels nest." Oh, wonderful. Chip and Dale living in my house, I'm sure the cat will just love that. That's when our friend took a picture, I'm sure I look like this in the shot:



Anyway, the 4 jews and the goy drop off the tree at the apartment, put it in the stand somehow, and head off to Target for the next exciting round of Christmas glee: Buying ornaments, lights and other things to put onto the tree. Going to Target in Virginia during holiday season....weeeeeee.....Luckily, none of us have kids, so we got to skip the chaos that was the toy aisle.

D picked the theme of our Christmas tree. Red and gold, since gold is apparently "in" this year. After debating and almost breaking up, we found about 15 red ornaments and some pine cones that had gold glitter paint on them, a full bucket of about 50 for only $4.99, red and gold garland, white lights and a gold star topper. You can only imagine that the glitter paint has made it's way around the apartment and even onto our skin. Our friend even picked out a nice Star of David ornament to go along with our tree, and D let me put it on even though it was blue and didn't match the theme that was chosen.

On the way home, we treated ourselves to IHOP. That has nothing to do with Christmas, I just want to say that I do really love IHOP.

So the 4 Jews and the goy go home and decide to decorate the tree that night. D makes cider with rum and hangs the roping and wreath. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas even before the tree gets decorated. We recruit one more goy and commence with the tree. We run out of lights halfway, so 2 of us Jews have to run down to Rite Aid and find 300 more lights. We find them, call to make sure we have chosen the correct lights, and go home. One by one, the ornaments and glittery gold pine cones are placed on the tree with care. D finds some ornaments from childhood, including an E.T. one, which is my favorite. Pop culture ornaments are the best.

I continue drinking my cider rum and eventually the day's Christmas gorging comes to an end. I look back and think, Wow, this is way better than just a menorah, and it's lasting a whole month rather than just eight days. The Maccabees would be so proud.