borrowed Christmas

I never celebrated Christmas as a child. We had other things we did, other days we celebrated, other reasons to give presents. We were not deprived or overly sombre, even...but we did not, in the end, celebrate Christmas.

At first it was just kind of normal. When I realised it was not normal, I was uneasy for a while; then I developed that kind of perverse pride that any seven-year-old holding minority playground status needs to survive. There were simply two kinds of people: Christians and Jews. Some of them celebrated Christmas, and some celebrated Chanukah. I started looking for the "other" tick box immediately.

After the perverse pride stage comes the silver lining stage. I tried to find all the ways in which my way was actually superior to other ways. The most obvious was that I was free to borrow as many other Christmasses and Chanukahs and so forth as I could find...and that developed, slowly, into a tradition of borrowing Christmas.

The way it went was simple: I was not doing anything on Christmas Eve (or Christmas day, or the first night of Advent, or all three) and my friends wanted to invite me to join them. So with much careful phone-calling between parents it was determined that I could in fact actually be away from home that night, and Christmas would find me sitting on someone else's living room floor, admiring someone else's ancestral ornaments, singing carols I was learning on the fly, and eating foods I didn't recognise off of someone else's fancy dishes. It was a mixed blessing: an adventure, an education, an intercultural whirlwind, and the best fly-on-the-wall opportunity the year had to offer. For once I was not expected to be anyone specific, as long as I didn't undermine tradition or routine. For once I was entirely unimportant...and I was profoundly invisible, while simultaneously being that welcome stranger who appears every few stories in the Bible.

At least twenty years now after my first borrowed Christmas, I have a library of experiences to my name. I have borrowed from friends and lovers and acquaintances and classmates and even strangers; I have had big fancy dinners with eight different utensils and balanced my plate in my lap while fending off pets in the living room. I have sung carols in three languages and explained my own complex religious traditions to strangers. I have danced new dances and written limericks for gift cards and played with wind-up toys on Christmas morning and eaten cold cuts off of fine china on Christmas Eve...and I have become an expert at borrowing Christmas.

For those of you who may find yourself the stranger at someone else's table, I offer this:

- love the experience
- release fear
- accept with grace
- expect nothing
- ask for the rules beforehand
- know that every Christmas tradition has rules
- practise forgiveness
- including for yourself
- show no surprise, except at a gift
- play with children and animals
- wear clothes that clean easily
- try everything you can
- laugh easily
- smile often
- respect your hosts
- maintain your integrity
- have your own transportation
- say please and thank you
- bring a gift if you can
- if nothing else bring flowers or cookies
- follow local custom
- offer ideas gently
- honour the ancient sanctity of the kitchen
- remember the spirit of Christmas

Christmas is this celebration of life and new beginnings, of returning light after gathering darkness, of the beginning of preparing for planting. Christmas for me is all mixed up with Chanukah and Diwali and Solstice, times to light the world from inside our hearts out. It is a time of goodwill and good wishes, or it can be.

Whatever you celebrate, and whoever's table you sit at this holiday season, may it be filled with warmth and light and joy, and may we all have a stranger welcomed in this day.

Welcome Yule!