Saturday, February 19th - "Why It's Difficult for Me to Fully Embrace One Religious Tradition"

While I absent-mindedly unwrap presents

in an alcove by the staircase, pretending

blithely to be surprised when my grandmother

regifts the same tired old sweaters, year

after ceaseless year, apparently not getting the message

when we send them back to her in springtime

to celebrate the rituals of her motherhood,

my own mother, so sure of the superiority

of her own traditions, sits down in the kitchen

overlooking the dingy living room, sipping vodka tonics,

saying that she knows it's a problem, but how

can you expect her to want to be fully awake

for the celebration of a holiday

which her family always told her was just a way

for Christians to dance around beneath a tree

and pretend to care about one another? Not

us Jews, she'd say, we just light candles

for a few minutes, and get it over with,

can't even be bothered to get together for long enough

to eat fattening fried food

and call it delicious. No, we're past that,

she says, staring deliciously

at the piece of coffee cake left on the plate

perched precariously close to the stove. Well,

don't mind if I do, she says to herself,

pretending that this is a tradition

which even Jews can't look down upon

without partaking in, like when I stood

outside in the light snow, puffing sadly

and asking why Jews don't have stories about reindeer

and sleds, instead like to tell boring old tales

of old men and jars of oil. Well,

we're boring people, my mother

always used to say, but at least we have the sense

not to sell dolls of our heroes. And with that

she's gone, back into the kitchen

to cut another slice of this ghastly, super-sweet coffeecake

which nonetheless drowns out the taste of the eggnog

which she has to sip, just once per year

to complain about its cloying sweetness

and feel superior to anyone who drinks it

without knowing that it has nothing to do with winter

and everything to do with falling asleep

and the inevitable rebirth that follows, hours later,

when everyone has gone home to sleep,

another year's worth of whispers and rumors in tow.