from HOLIDAY WISHES

So I’m in my dining room in Syosset, scraping last year’s candle drippings off the brass menorah that used to be my grandmother’s, polishing it and trying to pretend that my children don’t wish we celebrated Christmas instead of Chanukah. It’s hard to blame them. Christmas is everywhere – on the TV, in the stores, even on the radio. I know this last one because my kids have just turned up the volume beyond loud all the way to deafening so that they can be sure I hear the first few bars of "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer."

After the battle their Grandma June and I had here last night, all I can think is, if only!

I mean really, it’s not like Dana doesn’t know she’s Jewish just because she’s singing in the Middle School’s "Holiday Concert." (I put that in quotes because every song but one is a Christmas song. Singing Dreidel. Dreidel, Dreidel is supposed to make it ecumenical.) Jesse, being a ten year-old boy who takes extraordinary pleasure in provoking his grandmother, of course told her when asked what he wanted for Chanukah, that he’s hoping for a stocking full of candy. Hey, what kid isn’t? It’s not like he wants to convert. He just wants candy.

And how was I supposed to answer little Alyssa, who wanted to know how come, if Santa brings presents to all the good little girls and boys, he won’t bring any for her?

"Because he only brings stuff to goyish girls and boys," my mother told her. Like that should settle it for a six year-old.

"Grandma got run over by a reindeer, " I hear as I rub the menorah’s base like a clean menorah will fix everything. "I wish," I mutter under my breath.

The phone rings and Dana and Jesse fight over which one of them will answer it. "It’s Grandpa for you," Dana eventually hollers from upstairs.

I put the menorah on the windowsill and wipe my hands on the peach colored towel that matches my kitchen walls. I have a beautiful kitchen. I have a beautiful house. I should. I’m a decorator and I get to write all of it off as a business expense. Of course, I have to write it off against income, something I have very little of these days. Most of the furnishings in my house go back to my married days, when I had a father in the furniture business and a husband who worked for him.

I’d rather have an empty house. . .in a trailer park. . .next to a toxic waste dump . . .than still be in that situation.

"Is your mother over there, by any chance?" my father asks when I say hello. I’m surprised she’s not at home since we’re supposed to come over in a few hours to light the menorah with them for the first night of Chanukah.

"Maybe she forgot to pick something up for dinner?" It’s not like she cooks. Her idea of home-made is whatever follows that word on a menu. She could be out at Ben’s Delicatessen, or the appetizing counter at Waldbaum’s "making" dinner. I suppose she’s making it happen. My father is too quick to answer that yes, yes, that’s probably where she is. Except that her keys are on the table and her car is in the garage.

I’d say she went for a walk, only this is my mother we’re talking about, a woman who thinks dialing the phone is exercise.

"Did you try her on her cell?" I ask him, which is a stupid question because my father lives for gadgets and usually invents excuses to use his walkie-talkie, press-a-button, see-her-face cell phone.

He assures me he’s tried her several times and she doesn’t answer. "I have a bad feeling," he says. I resist the urge to say that my bad feelings occur when I’m in the same room with my mother, not when she’s out of view. After some hemming and hawing, he admits that he and my mother had a discussion last night. In my family a "discussion" means that though it was a knock-down drag-out fight, the police weren’t called and no one was taken to South Winds Psychiatric Center, my mother’s home-away-from-home. Again.

"About...?" I ask.

He releases a deep, heartfelt sigh. It’s his way of saying "Oy," without actually saying it. "She wants your brother to come home for the holidays."

"She wants what?" I say, and my voice cracks. My brother David has been gone since he got his MBA from Harvard and my parents sent him on a vacation to the Bahamas as a graduation present. He never came back. We’re talking nearly twenty years. He did show up briefly the summer before last, kind of checked the waters with my parents, found that he still couldn’t stand them. Lots of yelling, screaming, huffing, puffing and finally, leaving.

"She’s doing that this-could-be-the-last-year-we-are-all-alive business again," my father says. "You know, the family-should-be-together-before-it’s-too-late stuff. I told her the next time she sees David will probably be at my funeral."

My father is seventy-two, and since he retired last year, he seems to be aging faster and faster."Dad!"

"You know what bothered her? That I was going first. She wanted to know what made me think I’d be the first one."

I’d say ‘she did not,’ only I’m sure she did. If we were all forced to drink poison, my mother would insist that politeness demand she be served first.

"So then she probably took a cab to Saks and is buying herself something for you to give her when you grovel and tell her how sorry you are." My mother is not above picking a fight to get an apology present.