Although my husband David came from a more observant family than mine, he didn’t mind the white poinsettias I ordered from the florist. He figured they were only flowers. But he disliked the stemmed crystal bowl overflowing with tiny Christmas balls.

Undaunted, I purchased Yuletide cocktail napkins which accompanied a glass platter embossed with a bushy Christmas tree.

“Why don’t you slow down?” David said. “Sometimes when I come home, I think we’ve converted.”

But I disagreed. From the time our daughter was small we lit Chanukah candles and exchanged gifts. Half-dollar sized, my potato pancakes are brown and crunchy. We often invite our family to celebrate the holiday.

One year, my eight-year-old nephew stared at the festive accoutrements scattered around our living room. “Are you Jewish?” he asked.

“Of course I am,” I said, laughing. “It’s not like we have a Christmas tree.” I couldn’t bring myself to buy one. Instead, I coveted invitations to tree trimming parties, happily giving Christian friends elaborate ornaments.

I grew up during the fifties in Westchester County. While my family belonged to a Reform synagogue, my mother considered Christmas a bonus holiday. On December 25th, my brother and I tore open gifts wrapped in paper dotted with Santa and his elves. I still recall receiving a wool scarf with red and white stripes, resembling a candy cane.

Just so our gifts would have a home, my mother set up Christmas trees, which we decorated with garlands and ornaments.

At twelve, I began questioning this custom. “Is this okay?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “A Christmas tree isn’t a religious object. It’s seasonal decoration, like pumpkins and gourds.”

While I didn’t believe her, I still had an uncontrollable attraction to Christmas that stayed with me for decades. I longed to participate in this mid-winter fantasy. Christmas carols promised magic that I felt I deserved. Although I was an interloper, I couldn’t get the rhythm of the “happiest time of the year” out of my head.

Four years ago, I purchased a red and green runner for my dining table, placemats splashed with poinsettias, candlestick collars resembling wreaths, and a set of Santa Claus napkin rings.

“You’re out of control,” David said, trying to sound calm.

I wouldn’t admit it, but I agreed with him. It bothered me when pieces of silver tinsel landed on our brass menorah. Yet my Yuletide quest continued. I bought a tablecloth with leaping reindeers.

David tolerated this spectacle until December 2002, when he came home one night in a subdued mood. “Do you remember Joseph Stein?”

“From business?” I asked. “Didn’t he and his family visit New York from Geneva?” Because the Steins were Orthodox, we’d joined them at a kosher restaurant.

“I’ve invited Stein’s daughter Shira for dinner tomorrow night. She’s vacationing here and I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“Tomorrow night!” I stared at the red and green splendor of my living room, imagining it through Shira’s eyes.

David sounded apologetic. “Would you mind hiding all this stuff while she’s here? You can put it back after she leaves.” For an hour, we stuffed closets, finding places for every last bit of Christmas paraphernalia.

Shira arrived in a chic navy blue suit, her black hair pulled into a ponytail. She enjoyed the salmon steaks and salads that I’d prepared. Knowing we didn’t observe the Jewish dietary laws, she was comfortable at our table, as long as I didn’t serve unkosher foods. While our culinary differences didn’t bother me, my face burned with shame, hoping that the contents of my closets wouldn’t shift. I was terrified that a Christmas elf might roll onto the floor, blowing my cover.

After Shira left, I didn’t re-decorate my apartment. On January 1st, I packed seasonal items in boxes and piled them on the top shelf of a closet.

The following December, I never took them down. Much to my surprise, the dinner with Shira had changed me. I hated concealing my Christmas habit. I’ve always felt that if you have to hide something, it means you’re doing something wrong. At the very least, it proved that I was ambivalent about my behavior. Although my Christmas accoutrements remained cloistered in the closet, I couldn’t throw them away. Yet I resented this self-imposed intrusion into what had been a guilty pleasure, like calling in sick for work and staying in bed reading a novel.

Last December, my Christmas stash continued collecting dust. At the hairdresser I bumped into a neighbor who had just remarried. As Marie gushed about her wedding, a saleswoman walked in with a bag of Christmas accessories.

“You know I used to own all that stuff,” said Marie, shaking her head. “But when I got divorced, I sold my house and moved to Manhattan. My kids were grown and my apartment was small, so I stopped setting up Christmas trees. I shed my ornaments and trimmings. Would you believe my husband begged me to buy it all again?”

“What’s so odd about that?” I asked.

“My husband’s Jewish,” she said. “Although Bernie always yearned for a Christmas tree, he couldn’t have one…until now.”

Watching her select a Christmas tree apron with a tartan plaid, yards of golden garlands, and boxes of blinking lights, I flinched. Unlike most Jews who dabble with the forbidden Yuletide fruit, he wouldn’t have to justify a living room full of Christmas cheer.

“What would Bernie prefer on top of the tree?” asked Marie. “The angel or the star?”

“I’ve never even met Bernie,” I said, wondering if a lifetime of decorating for the wrong holiday had brought me to this.

“Won’t you help me out here?” she said. “Which symbol looks less religious?”

I asked, “Aren’t they both religious?” I realized why I can’t spruce up for the holidays any more. Yet I should have offered my merry accessories to Marie and Bernie. Their home is where a collection of Jewish Christmas decorations belongs.

The End

**

Linda Morel has written holiday food articles for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and her personal essays have been published in Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Newsday.

My daughter discovered the problem during the eleven o’clock news, walking around in socks that became cold and wet. I called the doorman, requesting that the superintendent come immediately.

Often surly, Ely intimidates many residents in the building, who naturally resent him. We live in a white brick highrise on Seventy-seventh Street, which is okay, except that it abuts First Avenue rather than Park. Nonetheless my neighbors bear the sense of entitlement typical of Upper Eastside co-op owners.

I accept Ely’s moodiness. Unlike others who demean and demand, I’ve always treated him with respect. Although not exactly a friendship, our relationship works, something that theoretically should stand me in good stead.

Ely spoke into the lobby intercom and explained how to shut off valves that control the air conditioner’s water supply. “The dripping will stop in half an hour,” he said in a tone conveying that he was going back to bed.

I followed his instructions and also placed a small bowl under the leak. Unfortunately the air conditioner’s casing leaves no room for a bucket. I gathered old towels. Laying one over the swamp, I danced on it to sop up moisture.

“You look like you’re stomping grapes,” my daughter said.

Things like this never happen at the right time. Allissa was packing for college; my husband was out of town. And friends, whose Greenwich Village apartment was being renovated, were staying with us until their place was livable, a concept that is relative in Manhattan, land of the leaks.

The day Jane and Roy moved in with us, their ceiling sprung a leak making Niagara Falls look like a trickle. Their superintendent discovered that workmen repairing the roof had left a shaft wide open, welcoming the thunderstorm that followed.

“I don’t think this leak is slowing down,” I said fifteen minutes later. I emptied the bowl, noticing water seeping from a pipe no where near Ely’s assessment of the problem.

Taking a dry towel, Roy got on his hands and knees, searching for the source of the leak, since the valves had been closed for thirty minutes.

“Insist that Ely come up here,” Allissa said.

“I hate to bother him at this hour,” I said.

“But that’s his job,” she said. “That’s why he has an apartment in the building—to be here in emergencies.”

During Jay Leno’s monologue, I called the doorman again, explaining that the leak was still going strong. But Fernando is not a worrier. “Yust geeve it time, Missus,” he said, hanging up.

The parquet floor under the carpet was buckling, causing it to ripple. I nearly sprained my ankle dancing on a soggy towel. Another fifteen minutes passed; it was time to empty the bowl.

“I think we should take shifts throughout the night,” Allissa said. “Since I found the leak, my shift was first. I’m going to bed. Wake me at eight.” I picked up the intercom.

“Fernando,” I said. “It’s getting serious. Soon I’ll be ankle deep in water.”

“Yust go to sleep, Missus,” he said. “You can’t stay up all night watching dripping.” He promised that Ely would come to me first—in the morning.

Jay Leno introduced a Chinese chef, who waved a cleaver he called an Asian vegomatic. He nearly sliced Leno along with the vegetables. On a better night, I would have changed the channel; instead I obsessed over drops hitting water.

Jane recalled an aggravating leak in their bathroom. The wall behind the sink was wet for months from a pipe that wasn’t visible. “The superintendent had to take down the wall,” she said. “What a mess.”

“We had a similar situation,” I said. “Ely ripped out our bathroom ceiling six times before discovering plumbing problems upstairs.

“Can you imagine the secrets buried in the walls of these highrises?” Roy said. “They’d have to tear down whole buildings to straighten everything out.”

Water fanned eight feet from the wall. As Leno went off the air, Roy suggested trying Ely again.

“He resents being on call,” I said, looking out the window. Most of the apartments were dark in the walk-up buildings across Seventy-seventh Street. Traffic on First Avenue had thinned to a trickle. Jane and Roy took my advice and turned in.

“I’m sorry to bother you again, Fernando,” I said. “But the flood has now been upgraded to a tidal wave. If Ely doesn’t help, I can’t be responsible for what happens.”

“You want me calling Ely?” Fernando asked. “It’s berry late, Missus.”

“I’m not worried about my carpet any more,” I said. “What if plaster falling from the saturated ceiling below crushes people downstairs?”

At one thirty, Ely rang my doorbell. “They need two supers in this building,” he barked. “One for day and one for night.” His eyes were blood shot as he lumbered through the door, carrying a container with a hose. He shot compressed air through the leaking pipe. His diagnosis: blockage. Water from the twelve apartments above drains into a pipe running to the basement. But debris had clogged the pipe on my floor, which is why my living room was turning into lake front property.

Ely wanted to enter the adjacent room, where Allissa slept. I opened her door and he pointed his flash light, discovering that her carpet was wet. Compressed air hissed.

I sat on Allissa’s bed as he worked, so she would not be startled.

“What’s happening?” she asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

Ely grunted and returned to the living room with a wrench.

“He’s trying plug the leak,” I said. “I’m afraid Ely is furious.”

“Well, if he’d cooperated at eleven, he wouldn’t be here now,” she said, pointing out that he’d had more sleep than me. “I hope you’re not tipping him.”

“I’ve already slipped him one hundred dollars and thanked him for coming.”