Lise Ravary: There’s just no way to escape Christmas

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Most columnists hate Christmas. People expect us to write about it, but it’s hard to say anything new. There are not so many ways to tell the story of the birth of Jesus Christ. We all know this beautiful story, even non-Christians, and we know how it ends 33 years later.

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For many, the magic of Christmas ends at the dollar store as we try to return ornaments that didn’t sparkle to our satisfaction.

No one has yet found a way to return a less than satisfactory Christmas bird. Supermarkets will not accept dried turkeys.

Christmas can have its drawbacks.

I’ve never lied about my childhood Christmases. But I gave them the best spin, because I wanted to write an uplifting story. This time, here is the whole truth:

My Christmases were celebrated in the French-Canadian style, except for the main meal, after Christmas mass. Instead of roasting a turkey, my mother made spaghetti and meatballs with a recipe given to her by her longtime best friend, Colomba, whose parents had immigrated from Italy to the eastern edge of Montreal in the early 1900s.

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Colomba was the queen of homemade Italian food. Their hospitality was legendary, as was their recipe for spaghetti and meatballs. At my mother’s table, it didn’t taste exactly the same, but every year we pretended it was fabulous. Who wants to ruin Christmas with spaghetti sauce?

No one. Just like I didn’t want to fight my parents over their watered down version of Christmas, which I hated. After midnight mass, my parents and their guests danced the night away in the basement to the music of Connie Francis and Xavier Cugat, bottomless rye glasses and 7 UP in hand. For one girl, it was a crying disaster.

I was the only child in my family. No cousins, no brothers or sisters, just me. I sat alone upstairs in the kitchen, rocking all night in the old wooden chair next to the television. Lonely as hell, I cried a lot despite the toys strewn under the silver tree that I hated with unholy passion.

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I felt lonely. I was alone. Although he was a privileged child.

Things got better when I became a mother. Making Christmas a reality for your own children is magical. My best Christmases were spent on the living room floor of our 1890 house in Montreal West, a blazing fire and an honest coniferous tree releasing its woody scent throughout the house. It was about the children. We drank eggnog, not hard liquor. We hear old-fashioned Christmas music, Christmas carols by the Cambridge Choir and the screams of ecstatic children.

In the afternoon my British ex-husband and I watched the Queen’s Christmas message as we enjoyed turkey, roast potatoes, gravy, mince pies, bûche ice cream, and homemade plum pudding with brandy sauce that only I ate and enjoyed.

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Then the children grew up. The Christmas glow dimmed again. And I entered a phase in my life that changed not only what I did, but also who I was. In 1994, I began my conversion to Judaism. Not for marriage, but for yirat shamayim, a wonder from heaven. I joked that I had become a Jew to escape Christmas forever.

As if it were that simple … Christmas is everywhere and in comparison, Hanukkah is, well, more circumspect, but I learned to make latkes, to play dreidel with my girls – who enjoyed the eight days of gifting – lighting the candles and murmur the blessing. It felt so good. There is no pasta in sight.

I thought my friends were going to ask me all about my new vacation. He did not do it. All they wanted to do was talk about their Christmas celebrations, the food, the gifts, the decorations, the songs and, and, and …

There is no way to escape Christmas.

Have a very happy one.

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