happy chanukah puppyfish

i know it's confusing
all this christmas
and santa
and such

and
i'm not an expert
but
i'm gonna try to make
some sense of it, anyway

now
some of your friends are christian
and
they will tell you
christmas is about the birth of christ
there's a beautiful story
where the most holy person ever born
is treated like dirt
no room at the inn
and then three wise men
come bearing expensive gifts
because they recognize his worth
and
they give presents
to commemorate that


and
santa
doesn't have anything to do with jesus
santa
is a story which has origins
which pull from the great melting pot
pagan and pagan christian hybrid st. nicholas blah blah
to become something that is very american
santa is at best
a personification of the spirit of giving
so
why
doesn't santa visit you
like he visits your friends

the short answer, puppyfish, is that he doesn't visit them either
but
i love you
and i want you to use your whole brain
so i'm gonna give you the long answer


ok puppyfish
you know how i give you totems
how do you know those aren't graven images, idols
maybe you don't
and that's important
a totem isn't something you worship
it doesn't answer your prayers or demand loyalty
it offers up it's essence as an example a guide
a more powerful template
to stretch into

and
i think
that's kinda what christians want santa to be for kids
someone selfless, impersonal, but generous, caring, happy
it's all about being better to give than to receive
but
america is a consumer culture
and
even though christmas is largely santa and not jesus
it becomes compulsive, excessive, and commercial


i personally don't like that those parents pretend that santa is a person
rather than an ideal
i think that they think they are keeping their children innocent
of the machinations of reality
when they are really
teaching their children
that love equals material possessions

and that i think
as much as anything christians might throw at us
is the zeus in our temple


the history of the jewish people, puppyfish
is chock full of repression
i could theorize about why we seem like such a threat
but i won't
but
in the ancient world
the temple represented judaism
in the way no one place could today
the ancient greeks
for all their culture and civilization
felt so threatened that they desecrated our temple
and put up a statue of zeus
a graven image
worship who we say
we won't let you be who you are

the maccabees said enough
they fought the power
and they took back the temple
we light the lights to commemorate
the victory
and
the rededication of the temple
it was maybe a miracle
that they found an undesecrated container of oil
and it was maybe a miracle
that that oil lasted until they were able to bring in fresh supplies
or maybe that is just a metaphor
for the smaller number of maccabees
overwhelming the great army of greece

the reason we don't have a hanukkah bush
the reason we don't play along with this great american game
because
we are american
is that we honor both the maccabees
and a larger american ideal
freedom of religion

you're not hurting for stuff
we don't need to sell out who we are
just to prance around in some retail pagent tilt-a-whirl
i'm sorry if i'm coming off like a hippie
please don't become an investment banker
now
get your dad to teach you the dreidel thing
i don't know from dreidels
and i'm gonna go make latkes
teaching you that food equals love
which is almost as wrong
but
delicious