//creative//
Spring 2021
Spring 2021
A Very Chanukah Christmas
Sara Rosin
Chanukah is no fun when you’re all about Christmas.
We’re Jewish. Mom said but I know that already. I still want lights and decorations and a big green tree with ornaments I create. I get so worked up thinking about it I can hardly sleep. When the songs start around mid-November I have a love deeper than I can understand.
What if we have a tree, but there’s a Jewish star up top?
Mom tells me I am materialistic. I tell her I don’t know what that means. I look at my feet. I look back at her face and I narrow my eyes. She says I just want presents like the other kids at school. Moms aren’t always right you know. Her back is to me in a second. She hauls the box of menorahs in her thin arms. Go get the tinfoil for the table, she says. I go to the kitchen to get the tinfoil for the table.
It isn’t about the Christmas presents for me, it isn’t. Well it is about the Christmas presents a little bit. I like the idea of Christmas. The pajamas and 6am wake-up and dinner for lunch with family. I like the decorating the tree together and the hats and the cookies and the tree itself. I put the tinfoil on the table. I start to lay it out.
Get all the corners, my sister says.
Shut up, I say.
I’m not gonna get you a present if you’re gonna act like a bitch. She says.
Would you please get me a present?
My sister rolls her eyes. She swings her feet off the ugly couch. Get the corners, she says. Get the corners I say under my breath. She is mean to me, but I don’t want her to leave the room.
After I get the corners, I run up to my room two stairs at a time. I have to hold on to the band of my pants because they are too big on me. I go into my room and get out the special wrapping paper I bought all by myself for me to use. I put the box with my mom’s new earring inside at the center.
I wrap it. I tape it up.
I write a nice little card on a piece of paper I cut into two halves. I use only one half for her present.
I wrap up my sister’s present and my brother’s present, and then my dad’s. I want to give a present to my dog, but I don’t have a dog. I wish I had a dog. Maybe I’ll get a dog for Christmas.
I mean Chanukah.
//SARA ROSIN is a sophomore in Barnard College and creative editor at The Current. She can be reached at ser2206@barnard.edu.