I love Christmas.
And I decorate accordingly.
I have a silver Christmas tree from the 1960s, complete with a color wheel that makes it change color. I display the Department 56 Santa Village I’ve been collecting since, well, forever. I hang garlands on my mantle, and pictures of reindeer and Christmas carol lyrics on my walls. I pull out my Frosty the Snowman guest bathroom towels and alter every recipe I can so that it is red and green.
AND I put up my menorah.
Now, I’m not Jewish, but my ex-boyfriend is (at least I assume he still is given that his being Jewish and wanting to raise our hypothetical children Jewish — and only Jewish — was the primary reason we broke up). I bought my menorah when he and I were dating (along with a few Hanukkah plates to add to my Christmas plate rotation). I didn’t do these things because he asked me to. I did them because I didn’t want him to feel like Christmas was the only celebration I realized was happening this time of year, and I wanted a visible sign that said, “I care about you and therefore care about your religious traditions.” And even though we’ve been broken up for 2 years I still display my Menorah and recite the Hanukkah prayer.
At my holiday party this year a friend asked, “Why do you still have that?” nodding at the Menorah sitting on my mantle. “Doesn’t it remind you of something you’d rather forget?”
To the credit of the question asker, it is a fair question. Many of my friends don’t know my ex. Even though he lives about 10 minutes away, he isn’t exactly on speed dial anymore. Plus, we were broken up before I met most them. They’ve only heard stories.
Admittedly, I don’t often tell the nice ones.
My friends don’t hear about when he surprised me with wine tasting in Santa Barbara. Or the day he went back to a thrift store to buy a vintage cashmere sweater that I loved but wouldn’t spend the money on because I was a broke grad student.
Instead they hear about how he made a list of all the things he didn’t like about me and that he wouldn’t help me unload the truck after my cross-country move. It is understandably hard for them to see why I would keep something so closely associated, in their minds, with him. Moreover, why I would choose to display it on my mantle during the happiest time of the year? If I’m going to keep it, why not in a box labeled with a skull and cross bones?
However, I don’t associate my Menorah, or any Menorah for that matter, with him. When I unbox Christmas decorations and unwrap the blue, abstract Menorah he crosses my mind in a very fleeting way. I think about when I celebrated the first night of Hanukkah with my friends Sarah and Katie from grad school. I remember how excited and proud of me they were when I could recite the Hanukkah prayer in Hebrew. I’m reminded that I can participate in a Seder and explain the religious significance of the foods because I took the time to learn about the religion that gave birth to Christianity. And while none of these things are part of the traditions I grew up looking forward to, they are part of the tradition from which my faith grows. Understanding and respecting Judaism has only ever made my faith stronger. And without Adam I might never had felt the push to learn more about Judaism than what can be gleaned from the lyrics of Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah song.
Did it bother me that Adam never bought me a Christmas present while I always made sure he had 8 gifts for Hanukkah?
Of course.
Did it annoy me when he scoffed all through Easter service and kept asking if it was “Over yet?”.
You bet.
In fact, it still makes the hair on the back of my neck bristle when I think about how he was so dismissive of my religious tradition as I worked to understand, appreciate, and participate his. But at the end of the day, he is the one who shortchanged himself by not being open to appreciating a religious tradition different from his.
I have gained so much by being open to learning about and celebrating Jewish traditions that it never occurs to me to be upset when I pull my Menorah out of the Christmas decoration box.
Criggerpalooza! 
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