Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Where, oh where is my Merry Christmas

By MARLENE SOKOL
Published December 23, 2005

I awoke on Sunday with a purpose: I was going out to Wal-Mart.

I was looking for the little man in the Santa suit, the one on television protesting the "happy holidays" greeting. I so wanted to meet him in person, maybe poke him in the belly and say, "I'm Jewish! I'm Jewish."

But he wasn't there. And I felt ripped off.

Worse, I stumbled on a notebook and a photo album that I really, really needed.

So there I was in the "fast-lane" self-serve line, two families behind some guy with a tackle box that would not scan.

He stood there. I stood there. Again with the tackle box. His wife was talking on a cell phone and looking annoyed.

We stood there forever, again the box on the scanner, the family between us unnaturally patient.

Standing there, bored, I decided to let my imagination run wild. I began to wonder if it was all a plot. There was no Wal-Mart boycott. It was all a big hoax.

Perhaps my people were behind it. I might just have missed that day's meeting.

First we'll form a lobby. We'll call it the American Family Association, because no one could be so condescending as to imply that only one religion cares about families.

We'll go after Kmart and Lowe's and Target and we'll instruct our members to "be firm, yet very kind in your correspondence with these companies."

No, my people were not that clever.

I looked up. Same guy. Same tackle box. Same wife on cell phone. Was this deja vu or were we really still standing in this same line?

Okay, so somebody else was plotting against us.

Somebody did not want me to have this notebook and this photo album and this bag of cough drops. They. Would. Not. Take. My. Money.

But why?

Because I say "happy holidays" and not "Merry Christmas," and so I'm a big phony and therefore my money is no good here? They steamroll small businesses, lure me in with rock-bottom prices and now, it's like I voted Democrat so I'm not allowed to shop? Just stand and stand like a rat in a cage?

Whole families were dashing about - "you stand in that line and I'll stand in that line."

But no. These other shoppers could not all be Democrats. And certainly they were not all Jewish.

It had to be something else.

I emerged, 30 minutes later, with my $3 worth of merchandise. Just enough time to go to Best Buy and Sports Authority for gifts I could not afford to mark a holiday the merchants had corrupted on my behalf.

I realized, driving home on darkened roads, that I had missed the last three or four presidential speeches about the war.

Was that the point of the "happy holidays" boycott? To keep me ignorant of the news? After all, the White House greeting card played a part in this brouhaha.

Naaah. Bush wasn't even Jewish . . .

Deep in my reverie, I took note of a house bedecked with sparkling white icicle lights. Then another, with an inflatable Santa and Frosty anchored firmly on the lawn. A pretty green and red wreath. A lovely spiral of lights around a sabal palm. My neighbors, so familiar, so salt-of-the-earth, and so steeped in these traditions that I could behold and admire.

I resolved to drop the paranoid fantasies and enjoy the season for what it was. A respite from the children's school schedule, a time to reunite with friends, eat good food and bask in our shared humanity. I will take my rightful place in the family of mankind.

Just don't anybody wish me a happy new year!

[Last modified December 22, 2005, 09:27:09]