“Nightmare Before Christmas,” by Lisa Kudrow, was originally published in the December 1998 issue of Vogue.
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As it is for many children, Xmas was my favorite of all holidays. But because my family is Jewish, we didn’t celebrate it. (How pathetic: Having never experienced it, I still chose it as my favorite.) Multicolored glowing lights were, I decided, the most beautiful adornment for a home. The Xmas specials were, I thought, the best entertainment TV had to offer all year—not the boring Bing Crosby-Perry Como-singing Lennon Sisters specials, but the stop-motion and animated ones: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, Frosty the Snowman. I especially liked Frosty the Snowman because Frosty sounded like my cousin Jerry, so I decided he was Jewish and this show was the most OK for me to adore.
I had a certain amount of guilt about my love for Xmas, which is why I write “Xmas” and not “C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S”—I can’t even bring myself to spell it out. One year, in my overwhelming craving for the ultimate holiday, I asked my father if we could get a Hanukkah bush. I figured it would be like an Xmas tree, but Jewish. And to me, the tree was the most wonderful part of the holiday. Now, you must know at this point that we were not religious Jews. We didn’t belong to a temple; we were secular Jews and never even pretended to be religious on the High Holidays like most other Jews we knew. So I thought. Maybe we can get a bush, since we aren’t religious. We were, however, proud of our heritage—a very rich, splendid heritage, and I learned all 5,000 years’ worth while awaiting the “no way in hell” response to my plea for a Hanukkah bush. While there were Jewish families we knew who had Hanukkah bushes—even Xmas trees—they were, I came to learn, “bullshit” Jews. So I put away, as best I could, my adoration of the sheer magic and beauty of the lights and smells surrounding Xmas.
I decided to appreciate the effort my parents made in adorning our menorah. It sat in what seemed to be an altar: a plain white Styrofoam bottom with burn holes from discarded matches. The menorah had Styrofoam sides in the shape of tablets, with the Ten Commandments written on it in glitter. Every year more of the glitter rubbed off. I thought, OK, so then, this is now, OK, beautiful. Don’t misunderstand, though—I loved the nine presents I got to open. I always adored a pile of presents, no matter what was inside—the thrill of seeing a treasure trove of gift-wrapped shapes offered me unequaled excitement. So I embraced our festive, glittery menorah stand and all the fabulous piles of gifts I got to open I every year and tried to put Xmas out of my mind by finding comfort in being a “real” Jew, not an “Xmas-tree-having-bullshit” Jew.
Then, in 1993, I found myself dating Michel, who is French and not Jewish. By October we were rather serious. We’d been together for four months, and anything longer than two months was “rather serious.” You know, the intimate stuff was magical, we got along exceptionally well, he’d said, “I love you.” All that was great—very dear—but what was thrilling was the thought that we’d still be together in December and I’d up have to help my by-then “serious” boyfriend celebrate Xmas.
And I did have to—he was far from home, and he d always talked about the great Xmases he’d had as a child. Michel’s family would celebrate mostly on Xmas Eve, when they’d eat smoked salmon, foie gras, oysters, and sometimes caviar with crème fraîche and blinis. They’d always drink champagne. Then they’d pull out the roulette table (yes, seriously) and play for a while, then, finally, open presents. Well, that was about the sexiest Xmas I’d ever heard of—very Cary Grant/Grace Kelly-ish. I was so excited to help him have that Xmas here, because I didn’t have to get him a tree. I knew I wasn’t ready for that. But this I knew I could pull off with minimal guilt.
I started planning. My mother, a travel agent, got me a great deal on a room at a fabulous French hotel in L.A. This was perfect because we could get all those crazy French versions of Xmas foods and, here’s the kicker, room service. Is there anything that is (a) sexier or (b) more fun than room service? Room service, in my estimation, is the best thing that could ever happen to a person. As far as I was concerned, anything else I did for him was just gravy. And the fact that I had gifts for him made me an angel on Earth.
Michel’s birthday falls very close to Xmas. He’d told me how awful it was having it lumped together with a big holiday and getting only one gift. Well, you don’t have to talk me into the idea that many gifts are better than one. And how sad that his birthday was always overshadowed! This made me even more excited to give him what was already such a great surprise gift—a night in a sexy hotel with his girlfriend, and room service with all his Xmas foods! I also wanted to get him lots of gifts to open. I asked him what he wanted and he said, “Binoculars.” OK; so easy. I got him some cool, very small, easy-to-take-anywhere binoculars from some guy store like the Sharper Image or Brookstone. While I was there, I found a fun golf accessory that could tell you how far you were from the pin. He liked golf, and all men love electronic gadgety things—it was perfect. I also got him a very cool lathering brush for shaving.
I now had four gifts, and three of them were wrapped! Then I found the best gift of all. A couple of weeks before, we had been in his kitchen making pasta when Michel asked me to grate a hunk of Parmesan cheese and handed me the most complicated, stupid plastic thing with levers and a crank. This was his cheese grater. I could fit only a dice-size piece of cheese in it, and the crank was so hard to turn that it flew out of my hands twice. I ended up with half a teaspoon of cheese—ridiculous. But here, in this store, was an electric hand-held cheese grater with settings and a light! This, I knew, would be his favorite.
“Oh, my beauty! This is the most fun gift. Let’s order some cheese from room service and use it right now,” I kept imagining him saying. He loved electronic functional toys, and this was so functional.
Now he had four gifts to open! They were different shapes and they all had different wrapping paper!
Michel knew that “real” Jews don’t do the Xmas thing, so he thought that this was just a birthday celebration that happened to be on Xmas Eve and in a hotel. I couldn’t wait to see his face when I pulled out all the Xmas gifts (the binoculars were for his birthday) or when his fancy Xmas food got there. And, what’s more, they had a roulette game on the in-room Nintendo! Are you kidding? I am Santa Claus making Christmas dreams come true!
We got into the room and it was nice, we were excited, we felt sexy about it, you know? I went to order the food (not having thought to order it ahead of time—my only mistake for this intimate gala), and Michel said he wanted baked fish.
“But we could have those things like you have at home on Xmas.”
“Oh, my beauty, no. These things here are not the quality we have in France—no, you have to go to a specialty shop to get the imported foie gras and salmon and … no, no, we can’t eat the shit they have here.”
“Oh… Well—”
“No, I want the fish, maybe some crème brûlée, and I will be very happy.”
“Oh. OK. Whatever makes you happy. I just thought it could be like at home. You know what? They have roulette here!” I’m waiting for his eyes to light up, but they don’t. Maybe he didn’t understand me. You know the French—an American says a French word, even a word like roulette, and they act like they can’t figure it out. So I jumped over to the TV.
“My baby girl, I don’t want to play video games.”
“But it’s roulette.”
“OK, but I still don’t want to sit in front of a TV. It’s not like we played roulette every year. It was just as a kid I remember it was fun….”
“OK, OK, we’ll just order the food and you can open presents. Or do we have to wait till midnight or something; isn’t that how it works?”
“No, I can open now.”
Yeah, I think, now it’ll get good. So like a little elf I ran over to my bag, and with each gift I pulled out, his beautiful face lit up more and more.
“These are all for me?”
“Yeah, well, one’s a birthday gift and the others are little somethings for Xmas so you have something to open for both.
“You are the sweetest one!” he said, as he opened the first gift I handed him. “Oh, binoculars! These are very cool.”
“Here’s the next one.”
It was the lathering brush. He stared at it, then very sweetly asked, “What is this?”
“For shaving….”
“Oh.”
“It’s a lathering brush.”
“Oh! It’s a pretty one … but I just switched to an electric razor. The straight ones are too harsh for my skin.”
“Oh.”
“It’s pretty, though.”
“Well, here.” I handed him the golf gadget.
Again, sweetly, “What is it?”
“It’s for golf,” I chirped.
“Oh, yes. But what does it do?”
“It tells you how far you are from the pin.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t like it. These are all—”
“No, it’s—”
“—small little gifts, I just…”
“Great. But…”
“What?”
“You know how far the pin is because they tell you on the course—there’s a sign on the—”
“Oh.”
“Thank you, my baby.”
“You’re welcome.”
I didn’t know what to say; it was getting awkward. Then he said, “I feel bad; I don’t have anything for you—”
“That’s OK.” (Not really.)
“—because you don’t like Xmas.”
“No—I… I do. That’s OK.” In my head I was panicking: How do I fix it? How do I fix it? Then I remembered my sure thing: the cheese grater. “Don’t forget this one,” I said.
He took it cautiously, saying, “OK.” I could tell he was nervous that he wouldn’t like this one either. He opened it, then said, not as sweetly, “What is this?”
“It’s a cheese grater!” I said triumphantly.
“A what? I have a cheese grater.”
“But this one is electric! And, see, there’s a light.” This was when I was expecting a big, “Ohhhh. I see! This is so great!”
Instead he said, “Why do I need this? And why does it have a light?”
“It’s electric—”
“Is the light so that I can grate cheese at night? What do they think, that I get up in the middle of the night to grate cheese? I’m fast asleep, and suddenly, I need to grate cheese but it’s late so I don’t want to turn on the kitchen light and Hey! that’s OK, because I’ve got this light on the cheese grater!”
“OK, fine. Enough!”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand these gifts.”
“I thought it would be fun to open a lot of packages….”
“Yes, it would be if I liked the things inside—I’m sorry, but I don’t need these things.”
Dingdong. Room service. We ate our food in awkward but polite silence. Once in a while we exchanged those closed-lip smiles that say I’m making an effort but I’m not really smiling because I’m not really happy!
“I’m sorry. I thought I was making it fun.”
“It is … fun.”
I sensed something else—an awful possibility. It came to me in an almost psychic wave of realization. All of a sudden, none of the gift stuff mattered. Yeah, yeah, so he didn’t like the bullshit little gifts, he’s not like me in that way, he prefers one big meaningful gift. That is not what bothered me. I took a deep breath. “Do you not like room service?”
“Not really. Actually, I hate it. I like making the food.”
He went on a rampage! About hotels. Food. But I didn’t hear anything. I just thought, Wow, we’re not gonna make it. We have nothing in common. I can’t bring liim any kind of happiness, and his European honesty with the “No, I don’t like the gifts you got me” is bullshit. I like the American bullshit of pretending to like a gift—it’s civilized.
Then something struck me. It was his tone. It was so innocent, so sincere. “I’m used to spending Xmas with family,” he said. “My family, or someone’s family, in a home. Having room service in a hotel on Xmas Eve is extremely depressing.”
I hadn’t seen it that way. Of course it was depressing for him! What had I been thinking? It had all been for me. I had a decades-old fantasy I wanted to live out, but because I felt guilty about wanting it, I rationalized and compromised my way into the worst Xmas experience for this sweet man. And for me it was far from the ultimate holiday experience I’d envisioned. No—that childhood dream about the beautiful lights, decorated tree, the stories of Santa Claus with a sack full of presents and, by the way, the cookies—all that is for the kids. All that stuff happens in the con- text of being surrounded by loved ones. So all the religious holidays are about family being together!
Well, now Michel and I are happily married. And I have a new fantasy that includes all that fun Xmas stuff, but now all the gifts are for my little boy. And since my son is half not-Jewish, my fantasy is totally appropriate. My lovely husband can now have Xmas with his own little family. And it’ll be great, whatever casino game we play. Michel is free, of course, to lavish me with countless Xmas gifts, but I now know to get him just one gift that I can be certain he’ll enjoy: a manual cheese grater.
