We found out today our Christmas Tree is Jewish.
There was nothing overt. Nothing obvious. We found out the hard way.
First, Susan (wife/partner/Princess) and I don’t celebrate Christmas so much as celebrate Solstice. It’s not that we’re Pagan or Wiccan, we simply prefer to celebrate Nature’s events. Much less confusion regarding days and dates, no variations on a theme, no Orthodox versus Reformed, no Baptist versus Catholic, no Sunni versus Shia, et cetera.
I mean, if you’re pagan you’re pagan you’re pagan. Pretty much a Wood Spirit is a Wood Spirit, a Guide is a Guide, a Totem is a Totem, and so on.
Part of our Solstice celebration involves getting a tree, lighting it, putting gifts around it.
Sound like Christmas?
Guess again. Christians stole those ideas (see Santa’s Shamanic Origins for more on this).
We got a tree at the Rotary. They sell trees every year in the shopping center parking lot.
We put it up, we were decorating it, Susan sipped some wine, and I tippled a bit of Scotch. We started singing some Pagan Wodes (you can find them and hear them if you know where to look). Pagan Wodes tend to be simple. Religions, when they started, borrowed from them. They were easy to sing, everybody already knew them, tack on a Jesu or whatever and you were good to go. The modern wodes make use of modern musicianship. Quite interesting, they.
So there we were, singing. One or two choruses in, we hear a soft humming.
We stopped singing and looked around. Not the dog or cat. They were asleep, snoring.
The humming stopped.
We sang again.
We heard humming again.
We kept singing, looking around for the source.
Every once in a while the hum would be interrupted by a few words. That’s when we noticed the Yiddish accent.
And the tree’s limbs were swaying to the music.
“Tree?”
“Sheldon.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Sheldon. My name. It’s Sheldon.”
“Excuse me… ah… Sheldon. Is that you singing?”
“I’m better at Christmas carols. I had a chance to study in the parking lot. But oy! the kibitzing. Such you never heard!”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Not to worry. Now your music. That’s beyond goyim (you should forgive the expression). But I like, I like. You hum a few notes, I can fake it.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re a Jewish Christmas tree?”
“I was supposed to be a Hanukkah bush. Things got mixed up in shipping.”
“Gosh. Sorry about that…Sheldon. Is there someone I could talk to?”
“What’s to talk? I got lights, I got tchotchkes – I mean ornaments. Very nice, too. Makes a shine. – I got gifts. Bests, I got a happy family! I should want different?”
“Wow. Thanks, Sheldon. You sure you’re okay with us celebrating the way we do?”
“Hey, you don’t mind the accent, I don’t mind the song. Everybody sing!”
Happy Holidays, All.
