By Maxine Shapiro, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX – I love the holidays. I mean, I really love the holidays. Christmas trees and Christmas music, Christmas decorations, Christmas cards... It's fun and joyful and exciting and sentimental and yes, I'm Jewish, but gosh-oh-gee, I'm sorry...I STILL love it.
Let me tell you what it was like growing up in my house.
We had a Menorah! I mean, I'm very proud of being a Jew. But when you're 8 years old come on. You know what the biggest thrill was? Every night you get to change the colors of the candles. The first night you light one, but it's really two. You see, you don't use a match to light the different nights - you have a main candle that you light, then light the candles that symbolize the nights with the main candle. The fun was to decide which color was going to be the main one and the different nights. The choices were blue- which is the symbolic color of Hanukkah - a few red, a few yellow, and some white. Do you have any idea what it was like when my mom bought a box of only blue candles? They call that torture.
Quick background here: Hanukkah really is a miracle. Back in biblical times, there was this temple and the early Greeks, who just didn't like us worshipping there or anywhere for that matter, destroyed it. After the destruction, when they went back into the temple, the Jews found only enough oil to light the Menorah for one day. Here's the miracle: it lasted for eight days until they could press enough olives to make more pure oil. What a wonderful story. But when you're a kid, this story just couldn't forgive the phrase "hold a candle" to the Christmas story. Or all the great things, objects and stuff that went along with Christmas.
It just killed me when I was a kid that I couldn't have a Christmas tree. That my partying was limited to twirling around a top called a dreidel. There's a Yiddish term used when someone is saying the same thing over and over again. You would say, "Quit draying." You got it - it comes from the word dreidel. So there I was, 8 years old, twirling around this top, over and over again. So then I would eat as many chocolate coins as I could possibly devour. I figured the sugar would kill the pain. It didn't. Then there's the potato latkes - potato pancakes. Years later, we would fight about whose mom made the better latkes. There was heavy, heavier, and heaviest. And then you put sour cream or applesauce on it. Show me a kid who likes sour cream and applesauce over those great Christmas cookies with the white frosting and the green and red sprinkles over it, and I'll show you a kid who never had those cookies.
Oh, and those great Christmas movies that still make me cry. "It's A Wonderful Life," "Miracle on 34th Street, "Christmas in Connecticut" (hey, I like Barbara Stanwyck!). Now, I've only told a few people this, BUT I SAW SANTA CLAUS!! ! And I don't mean at Marshall Fields (although to my mom's credit, she did take me there once). I mean in the sky, flying, with the reindeer. He was too far up, so I couldn't see Rudolph. But it was him - I know it was.
So now that I'm older, I get to do it all. With every little persuasion on my husband's part, we have a Christmas tree. A silver one this year - it's very cool. And I'll light the Menorah because I've become so touched by the prayer that goes with it. And I'll visit with as many friends as I can because I love that part the most. Where I'm thankful for everything that has been brought into my life. And you know, I just love the holidays!
This commentary first aired in December of 2000. You can hear Maxine Shapiro on the Marketplace Midday Report at one today during the Glenn Mitchell Show on 90.1. If you have opinions about this commentary, call 90.1's Listener Comment Line at (214) 740-9338.