The Dilemma of the Xmas Tree in Mixed Marriages (Hannah Ingber)
Hannah Ingber works at the New York Times. This appeared December 24, 2019.
The first time I had a Christmas tree was 1987, the one year my father was married to Susan. I was 6 and remember my father having to climb a ladder to decorate it.
The second time was last year. This tree was much smaller and looked a bit sad. It tapered off at the end and didn’t stand straight. My husband bought it, loaded it into our Honda CRV and put it in the corner of the dining room when I wasn’t home because he knew I would object to it. I kept the room’s pocket doors closed as much as possible all that December, but he would come downstairs and open them. The smell of the tree would linger outside the room. I won’t lie — it was a really nice smell.
Growing up, I considered not having a Christmas tree (except in the Year of Susan), not wearing red and green in December, and not decorating our front lawn in lights as much a part of my Jewish identity as celebrating Passover and going to Hebrew school on Thursdays.
My husband and I began to fight regularly over having a tree after our children arrived. Though he was raised in California as a Hindu, he said that decorating a tree was among his happiest childhood memories, that it symbolized home and family. I countered that a tree in our living room felt so unsettling, so out of place, so unbearable.
Couldn’t we just have a shrine to Krishna instead?
You would think that such a disagreement would have been settled before we CONTINUE READING: The Dilemma of the Xmas Tree in Mixed Marriages (Hannah Ingber) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice