Voices of MainStreet: Lisa Rae Rosenberg

2 Faiths, 1 Home

Nov. 29, 2010

My husband is Jewish. I was raised Catholic. We attend an Episcopalian church. At our place, decorating for the holidays is a multi-cultural/multi-denominational situation. The weekend after Thanksgiving, the menorah and the advent calendar will both come out. The wooden dreidels will take their place on the mantel next to the carved wooden Santa. That’s how these Rosenbergs roll.

The first weekend in December we will get our Christmas tree. A few years back, when my mom moved out of her house and into an apartment, I got custody of eight large plastic bins of tree decorations to add to the two big bins I already had. Every ornament tells a story. Sometimes the story is a reminder of a beloved family member that has passed on. Sometimes the story is a reminder that there was a really great sale on wooden beads at Cost Plus back in 1997. I will certainly never need to buy another ornament in this lifetime.

Our Hanukah menorah was a gift from my in-laws that my husband and I received on our first holiday together. We will light the candles and tell our son the story of the first Hannukah. We will teach him to play dreidel. Hannukah is early this year, falling at the beginning of December but we will keep those decorations up for the whole month.

In our neighborhood the outside lights and lawn décor will go up early. Our street already boasts a few houses with wreaths on the door. There is still one hold-out with an aging jack-o-lantern and faux cobwebs in the yard. On the next street over, the one with the big houses, holiday decorating is done by professionals. The lighting displays are a twinkling wonderland and the flower beds are filled with poinsettias. They even get carolers over there.

Our single strand of old-school colored lights will find its way to our porch in early December, or as soon as we can find the right extension cord. There will be a supermarket wreath on our door. There will be our 4-year-old son’s menorah shaped drawings in the windows. People may not line our driveway to take in the display but passersby will see that we are in on the joy of the season. We will hang stockings and eat latkes. We will sing White Christmas and The Dreidel Song.

We will marvel at the miracle of the eight nights of Hannukah light and the miracle of the star in the east. Now those were some decorations.

—Lisa is a former comedy writer for television. She now writes about her funny family at her blog Smacksy.com.