Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Halfy Holidays

This week I realized the value of completely ignoring your husband. 

See, Snookums' dad had been saying that because he's Jewish, he's against Christmas and Santa and he wasn't going to celebrate it and didn't really want his daughter to celebrate it and etc., etc., and no, you couldn't celebrate BOTH Christmas and Hanukkah because it didn't make sense since the religions were opposed to each other and besides, Hanukkah was really just a made-up holiday anyway, to compete with Christmas and blah blah blah. 

I got his point. (Especially after listening to him go on about it for 20 minutes.) But I wasn't looking to have Snookums accept Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior -- it's just that I grew up with Christmas and I wanted her to enjoy it too. (Besides which, it's totally pagan anyway. Christ was born in the spring, not the winter.)

But none of these arguments worked, so at a certain point I decided to just ignore him. I started by buying her a "My First Hanukkah" book, which got him all enthusiastic about getting her a dreidel and lighting the menorah and so on. Then I bought her a Christmas stocking and he didn't object, even thought it was cute. 

THEN, we went to a holiday party held by the mothers' group where we live. There was a Santa in the corner taking pictures with the children sitting in his lap. And suddenly, Zany Dad was all, "Let's get Snookums' picture with Santa!" So we did. 

The next day, I said, "I was really surprised at how enthusiastic you were about getting Snookums' picture with Santa. I thought you were against promoting Christmas." 

And he said, "Look at this way: Imagine we were in Saudi Arabia and there was an old Arab man, and Snookums sat on his lap." 

Whuh? So is he saying it's just some sort of cultural custom you follow because you happen to be there? OK, fine -- except that contradicts all the speeches I heard for months. And also, an old Arab man is not a religious symbol. Now, if Muhammad wanted Snookums to sit in his lap, maybe this argument would make sense. 

But it doesn't make sense. And you know why? BECAUSE SNOOKUMS' DAD IS BATSHIT CRAZY! 

Especially since (as he confessed while placing Snookums on Santa's lap), he had his OWN picture taken sitting on Santa's lap, 40 years ago, in Rio de Janeiro. 

3 comments:

Goody 2 Shoes said...

You won! Snookums wins too. Sounds like Dad is on board, as long as u do the driving!

Joseph LeMay said...

Christmas is not a pagan holiday. The exact date of The Christ's birth is incidental. You could argue that there are many aspects of it that are secular, but I'd stop well short of "pagan."

Goody 2 Shoes said...

Don't forget the old African American man in the corner's lap---Kwanzaa is coming up too.