Fa La La La La

This year, I finally got rid of my pink Christmas tree.

For years, I had been adamant about keeping our home treeless. We would have plenty of time for all that when we arrived at my in-laws' house in Michigan, where my father-in -law would hand me a martini and I would settle in and begin to put my stubborn (though somewhat ill-defined) Jewishness on the back burner for a few days. My participation in the rituals was nothing less than full-throated; I would hang ornaments (badly), repeatedly check my stocking for new additions, get swept up in the last minute Christmas Eve shopping spree, overwhelmed by the need to purchase all sorts of unnecessary crap.

Somebody asked me, the other day, why I get a little melancholy around Christmas. I have not been a part of the family celebration for years now -- just part of the collateral damage of divorce. At the beginning, my mail order pink tree helped me through it, allowed me to hang on to something that had never really been mine in the first place. I took comfort in the glow of the pink lights, even as the plastic branches began to list and fade. I told myself I was happy to return, after so many years, to the time-honored Jewish Christmas tradition of Chinese food and a movie. To stop celebrating a holiday that was, really, so meaningless to me.

My oldest daughter learned to crawl in a motel room in Kalamazoo one year, where we got snowed in on our way to Detroit. For a few years in a row, I seemed to acquire a new carved coyote from the Southwest store in town; I still have them. At the beginning, I would go with my in-laws to Midnight Mass, enjoy the music, choke on the incense, feel a little bit conspicuous while everyone else went up to collect a wafer and a sip of wine. In later years, I was the present-wrapper in chief, a self-appointed Mrs. Claus-stein, enjoying the satisfaction of growing the pile under the tree. Early on, my mother-in-law switched from that spiral cut honey baked ham thing to turkey and tenderloin, just for me, much to everyone else's dismay. I would drag myself out, every year, for a long run in the snow, before spending the rest of the day in sweats, stuffing my face and watching a "A Christmas Story" over and over again with my kids.

A holiday that had never been my holiday had become a part of me, and it's hard, frankly, to do without. The pink Christmas tree had served its purpose, though, and it was time to let it go. This year, I will decide, at some point, whether to participate in other celebrations or eat Chinese food or just stay home and reflect, enjoy the season quietly. The ghosts of my Christmas pasts do not haunt me; they are good ghosts, of family time well-spent.