The Tantrum, Part 1: Why Can’t Jews Just Ignore Santa?

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So I was walking JP home from his mother’s last night, and as is his usual pattern, he was trying to hit me up for a toy at each gumball machine we passed. He gets his way with this about once a week, which is a pretty high ratio, I think. Last night was a no night, which led to a discussion about why he never gets gifts (he does), when said gifts will arrive (I made the mistake of saying he had to wait for Hanukkah, when gifts would rain from the sky), which opened the door to a further discussion about how come we don’t have a Christmas tree like he does at his mother’s, which required me to explain that we do Hanukkah at my house, with its fun candles and stuff, which ended up in … a blank stare.

Don’t get me wrong—JP likes lighting things on fire as much as the next kid, and he knows that eight days of gifts is better than one. But he really has no idea what Hanukkah is, which makes sense, as I really have no idea what it is, other than the time of year where we have to make lame rationalizations about the pleasures of lighting things on fire and the surplus benefits of eight days of gifts while the entire country goes apeshit over a pagan demigod breaking into their fucking homes and stealing their cookies.

Problem solved! Fuck the goyim and their silly holidays of commercial excess. I’m going to stick with my potato pancakes and world-weary ethnic bitterness. It’s better that way. I will know where the finer Chinese restaurants are, and the Christians will have to make due with candy canes.

The real issue, though, is that JP will be learning about Xmas over at his mother’s house, and let’s be honest—Hanukkah can’t really compete. Christmas is too much, it’s too popular, too successful—it’s the Grinch that stole my Jewish Christmas. I can try to ignore it, but what good will it do? There’s lights everywhere! Before Halloween is even over!

Do I want, then, to actively undermine Christmas in JP’s mind? Do I tell him that Santa is not only not real but a little bit of a perv? And a drunk? And that the reindeer get nothing in the whole deal? Or do I do what divorced parents always have to do—accept that things don’t work perfectly, do the best I can, and make sure we have a good time anyway.

What do you think?

My Father Likes ‘Cock,’ and Other Thanksgiving Revelations

Last Wednesday evening, eight members of the Gross clan—including various wives and lovers—gathered in a very nice restaurant in Brooklyn for a bit of pre-Thanksgiving festivity. There were oysters and scallops, wine pairings and a cheese course. And, of course, much discussion of current events. It being almost-Thanksgiving, and many of the Grosses having flown into New York, the TSA was on our minds. My father, however, had one vehement opinion about the subject—or, more specifically, about John Tyner’s immortal line “Don’t touch my junk!”

Dad (in faux-screeching mode): “Why do they call it junk? It’s not junk! It’s very useful and important. Don’t call it junk!”

Me: “What term do you prefer?”

Dad (quietly, and after much thought): “Don’t touch my cock.”

Well.

And that was hardly the strangest thing I heard over the Thanksgiving holiday. For instance: Did you know there’s an entire illegitimate, love-child branch of my family? Neither did I, but it’s true!

Not Miller Nathan "Hobby" Hobson—just another bastard.

The story, recently revealed to my parents, is that during World War I, Nathan Miller, my mother’s maternal grandfather, who as Natan Chmilevsky immigrated to America from Lithuania, knocked up his mistress—a shiksa who named the child of their union … Miller Nathan Hobson. Yep.

Apparently—and I may be getting some of these details wrong; Mom, Dad, correct me in the comments—even after this, uh, incident, the mistress and her family continued to see the Millers socially. Miller Nathan even worked at Nathan Miller’s furniture business until 1947. At least Miller Nathan took on the nickname “Hobby”—perhaps to distinguish himself from his employer/father? Which, wow. Awkward!

Unless it wasn’t. Sometimes people get used to weird familial and social situations, sometimes wives forgive philandering husbands, sometimes the things that seem like such a big deal to us really weren’t to the people involved. It’s hard, if not impossible, for us to know what happened and how everyone felt such a long time ago, and it’s presumptuous to assume emotional crimes were committed. (Although, of course, maybe they were!)

The other point to make is a minor political one, which is that as much as conservatives would have us look to past generations as, say, “The Greatest!™,” they were all just as screwed up as we are today. Mistresses, lovers, swindlers, liars, crooks, divorcers, bastards, tyrants—they were also brave, loving, honest, and responsible. Except when they weren’t. All that’s left for us to do is to learn about their deeds and misdeeds with clear eyes and open minds, and to sit back—as we did during Thanksgiving—and chuckle at their all-too-human foibles.