Merry Christmas to All, and to All, “Show Some Pride!”

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3670482_a31914cae1.jpg One of my dearest friends has an Op-Ed in today’s Washington Post (page A29). Nitya, I’d be proud of you even if “Longing to Join in Christmas” hadn’t been published, but now that it has, Akka loves you even more, because obviously, like all good South Asian elders, my affection for you is directly tied to your achievements. 😉 I can’t think of a more perfect post for today (so let me get out of the way):

Christmas is the season when you are most likely to find yourself on a street of beautiful homes with twinkling lights, warm fireplaces and happy families outfitted in festive holiday sweaters, only to be filled with a yearning to possess not just the house but the lifestyle inside.

For my whole Indian American childhood in the early 1980s, I wanted a Christmas tree that way. And it wasn’t for the presents. It was for the lifestyle.

I wanted the Santa Claus, I wanted the holly wreath and I wanted the jolly elves who toiled in a workshop all year long. I wanted the sleigh bell-wearing reindeer on my roof. I wanted the colorful stockings hung by the chimney. And I wanted the jolly fat man to wiggle down our (nonexistent) chimney before he ho-ho-hoed his way across the night sky in a triumphant journey back to the North Pole.

From the warmth of my Hindu home, I always longed for that good old Christian magic — and not a holiday like Christmas but Christmas itself. I wanted to belong to the classroom party hosted by homeroom mothers in Santa hats, to know the words to the holiday songs that everyone knew, to feel the evergreen anticipation that never faded or fell from branches needle by needle.

My immigrant father, who’d recently come to America as a University of California grad student, was a man of little sympathy and extra principle when it came to the wants and woes of my childhood.

Santa isn’t real, he explained. And besides, we’re not Christian. We’re Hindu. If we celebrated Christmas, I would get you Christmas presents. But you can’t allow yourself to get caught up in materialism just because department stores try to sell you an idea that ultimately benefits them. Show some pride.

His pride argument was a precursor. It showed up a few years later when I wanted a Cabbage Patch Kid and after that when I asked for a Nintendo.

My mother always understood my need for belonging without explanation. Like a Third World Christmas angel with a sparkling diamond nose ring, she bought me presents every year until I was old enough not to need them to defend my holiday humanity.

She’d tuck them deep into a corner of a closet my father never found, and she’d sign the gift tags “Love, Santa” in perfect penmanship. After all, it was my mother, never my father, who stood on the sidelines of the playground where I tried to defend my cultural differences, often met by horrified gasps of “How do you not celebrate Christmas?”

Of course, as I look back on the heaps of presents we got for Hindu holidays throughout the year, my father did have a point. But in that version of “A Christmas Carol,” he played a modern-day immigrant-edition Ebenezer Scrooge to my ever-earnest, emotionally limping Tiny Tim. Plus, I was 4. I was one of Santa’s truest believers. All I wanted was a tree.

Then one day a miracle happened.

My father had to work late in the lab, and a local den mother who looked after the Indian graduate students showed up unexpectedly on our doorstep. She was slight and distinguished by the scent of Oil of Olay and fried mustard seeds that followed her. Dark-skinned and wiry-haired, she wore cotton saris everywhere and talked to me in loud Tamil, as if she was afraid I would forget the language.

She was the last person I would have expected to be standing at our door clutching a five-foot-tall Christmas tree and shopping bags filled with tinsel, lights and ornaments.

“Nitya, hurry up!” she whispered as I stood there, open-mouthed and filled with the kind of joy usually reserved for Christmas morning.

The tree took up half of our tiny apartment. And, although it never quite went with the bronze Ganesha statue or the painting of a bare-chested, flute-toting Krishna, its majestic, scented silence spoke of glittering magic and twinkling dreams more powerful than even the most principled nonbeliever.

My father saw it, bah-ed, humbug-ed and, in protest of the tree, made me cry on Dec. 24 by eating all the foil-wrapped chocolate I’d hung for Santa to see.

Part of me lives forever in the irony and innocence of that season, when a skinny brown woman in a cotton sari had the courage to defy my father to give me everything a fat white man in a red suit could not.




P.S. That picture is from December of 2004, when I celebrated the holidays as the only Christian at a very Hindu home in New Jersey, which featured, yes, a Christmas tree (see it towards the back?).

105 thoughts on “Merry Christmas to All, and to All, “Show Some Pride!””

  9. Awww cute article though I think the dad is now a big bad guy. Merry Christmas to one and all, I don’t have to be Christian to have an excuse to celebrate happiness love and light. I just absolutely love this time of the year.

  10. “Hot Yogini”: any similar mischief and you won’t just be deleted, you’ll be banned, for being guilty of what you accused us of– now please don’t ruin what should be a sweet thread filled with holiday cheer.

  12. Lovely post! I faced a similar comment from my mom this morning. I belong to a traditional pseudo secular Hindu family. But smitten by the Christmas bug and being brought up through schooling in a very secular environment, I kiddingly asked my mom for a Christmas cake. Unfortunately for me, she replied, not a bit kiddingly, “Are we Christians to make a Christmas cake?”

  13. No worries, JOAT– Uncle is bad…and by bad, I mean “good”. I heart him. We toasted him via a hearty “Show Some Pride!” the other night.

  14. My family was the opposite — my dad, who is actually pretty conservative on matters of religion, always brought home a Christmas tree and got into decorating it.

    Then when I was about 11, they sent me off to Sikh camp for a week in the summer to learn the rudiments of the Sikh religion. For a brief period, maybe six months), I was extremely assiduous about doing exactly what they taught me at camp; that winter, when tree time came around, I gave my dad a stiff lecture about how, as a Christian symbol, it was inappropriate for us to have. He took the tree down, and after that, we never had a tree.

    But secretly I immediately missed the tree, and though I always wanted that “Christmasy” vibe back, I kept quiet about it. (Was that the beginning of my life as a diehard religious moderate?)

    This year my wife, who is incidentally also a Sikh, came home with a little $20 plastic tree she found at the drug store. She wanted to put it up, and I didn’t protest. The tree, I suppose, is back.

    Going forward, it seems hard to imagine escaping the lure of Santa and Christmas presents with my own kid. (And indeed, why bother; I kind of can’t wait til he’s old enough to enjoy a Nintendo Wii half as much as I myself would, if I could justify the expense.) But still — we might try juicing up the major Sikh holidays some, to try and make them just as fun and memorable.

  16. My brother and I went to a little Jesuit school in Bombay; a school whose assembly hall doubled up as Church for the midnight mass. We heard our Catholic teachers talk about Turkey lunch and Christmas pudding with hard sauce. Our Catholic friends in 3rd grade boasted how they got high on the brandy in the hard sauce and in the rumballs. I was nine when my brother and I decided that we wanted some of that Christmas action too. We had always gotten little gifts for Christmas, but we never really had the big eat-in at home.

    Around that time, one of my dad’s colleagues who had just moved in from Delhi, found themselves grappling with a similar problem. So they invited us over for dinner and thus justifying the excuse for cooking a nine course lunch, one that finished with Christmas pudding. We sat eight to dinner and next year we invited their family over for lunch. It was perfect. Our parents got around the “problem” of celebrating a “pagan holiday” with a simple reciprocal invite! It worked like clockwork till we left Bombay.

    But by then, we were so used to the big Christmas lunch, that we took the tradition with us nonetheless. So tuck in! And Merry Christmas to everyone!

  17. From Canada, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Unfortunatley we don’t have any snow here right now…odd as it seems, especailly in Canada, it will most likely cover all of us in January. For me Christmas isn’t Christmas without some snow, the weather here is like fall… anyways wishing all well! Since my parents have immigrated to Canada back in the 70’s just like we celebrate Deepavali we have always celebrated Christmas and Christmas along with the tree, decorations and the family/friends togetherness, the reflections of how grateful we should be, the certain spiritual aspects of Christmas as all religions are one (although Christ may not have been born on the 25th of December and although there may be some aspects of Chrsitmas that are problematic) and of course the material/commercial aspects and sometimes the lights outside (but we have stopped putting lights outside the house as a result of laziness or those damn squirrels eating the wires…damn squirrels). Anyways Merry Christmas to all! And to all a good night!

  19. ANNA: MERRY X’MAS to you and all fellow Mutineers. Abhi has reached Houston safely few days ago. Unfortunately his new Apartment is not yet wired with phone or internet. He wishes you all MERRY X’MAS too. I am off to good old “INJA” in a day or two. Abhi will soon tell you guys why. If I find time I will send nice travel-log from India. Have great HAPPY HOLIDAYS !!

  20. Oh, Anna: You shouldn’t have.

    That said, being deemed newsworthy by my favorite Mutineer is truly a Christmas wish come true.

  22. My mom always makes an awesome fruitcake for Christmas. My whole Hindu family gets together for Christmas dinner (3 of my aunts are married to Christians so I suppose that has something to do with it) but I am working the night shift in the ER over the holidays so I am missing it all.

    Working the ER on Christmas Eve is nice, though…a local family whose patriarch was cared for on a Christmas Eve a long time ago, has, for many years, brought in a massive, delicious, home cooked dinner for the ER night shift staff each Dec 24th. About 20 family members, from little toddlers to gray grandpas, walk in with the food, singing Christmas Carols, and we all get teary eyed. It’s always nice to feel loved, even if it’s by someone you don’t really know…

  23. It’s always nice to feel loved, even if it’s by someone you don’t really know…

    I feel that way every time someone leaves a personal/meaningful comment on my diary (or any of my posts on any of the blogs I write for, actually). It is nice. I love your Christmas-eve-dinner story. Such sweetness.

  24. Can I put forth a question that has been bothering me since I was asked this a couple of days ago? Sorry if this sounds ridiculous. What does it mean to to you to celebrate a holiday, especially if you don’t attach religious significance to the holiday? I mean, if I’d kids etc, I would certainly be putting up a tree, making elaborate dinners, decorating, playing some music etc, exchanging gifts etc. But if you are single or without kids or just can’t afford the time for something elaborate what does it mean?

    For me, “celebrating” often means simply being aware of it’s arrival, and making some change in the daily routine, even if it is small. This could be just wearing a Santa hat for Christmas or lighting a lamp for Diwali. If I’m lucky enough to be in the same town as friends and we can meet, that’s fantastic. But if could be none of these things and I would still say “I celebrate Christmas/Diwali”. However, I would not say “I celebrate Eid”. So ultimately, it boils down to this – I can truthfully say that I celebrate Christmas simply because I’m willing to say “I celebrate Christmas” and not feel that I uttered a lie. But it’s somewhat circular logic …

    So do you celebrate Christmas? If yes, what do you mean by that if you are far from home, not doing the things you would where you grew up? If not, then what does it mean to not celebrate Christmas since a lot of Christmassy stuff is around you (if you are in a Christian majority nation) and it’s hard to ignore. I mean, it’s not like Columbus day…

  26. I LOVE Christmas trees, and wish I had never outgrown them. I too, went to catholic girls school in Bombay (yeah I did), and we had the tree, and the carols, and the christmas presents that each of us contributed to a large bag of presents for other kids in the class.. It was cool- coz you never knew who your present would go to – hence avoiding anything too expensive or playing favorites to any girls. My tam-bram mum and dad were cool enough to encourage Christmas at home.. We bought a little christmas tree every year (sometimes, reused an albeit fake tree) and my mum even helped me gift wrap matchboxes for under the tree decorations.. we put cotton all over the tree (what’s christmas without snow in Bombay) and added tinsel and glitter for tha tadded sparkle, and yes, I even made a cutesy star that would sit on the top. We bought presents for everyone in the family and signed them as Santa… Too bad I outgrew… perhaps when I have kids one day…

  30. Working the ER on Christmas Eve is nice, though…a local family whose patriarch was cared for on a Christmas Eve a long time ago, has, for many years, brought in a massive, delicious, home cooked dinner for the ER night shift staff each Dec 24th. About 20 family members, from little toddlers to gray grandpas, walk in with the food, singing Christmas Carols, and we all get teary eyed. It’s always nice to feel loved, even if it’s by someone you don’t really know…

    Wow just like an episode on ER and we thought all those stories were mostly hogwash 🙂

    So do you celebrate Christmas? If yes, what do you mean by that if you are far from home, not doing the things you would where you grew up? If not, then what does it mean to not celebrate Christmas since a lot of Christmassy stuff is around you (if you are in a Christian majority nation) and it’s hard to ignore. I mean, it’s not like Columbus day…

    I think a celebration is a complete state of mind.

    You don’t need a tree on Christmas or a diya on Diwali. I’ve spent many New Years Eves alone because I volunteer all day and get pooped and because I didn’t want to be the solo person in a company full of couples. I’ve always popped open a bottle of Champagne alone or not and welcomed the new year. I put up lights during Diwali on my balcony and leave them on thru Christmas. I buy my cat a present and watch him rip the wrapping apart to get to it. I made (or tried my best to make) a chocolate yulelog for my coworkers. I ate Pav bhaji at a holiday get together at a friend’s house last night. My neighbor sent me a bottle of eggnog (I hate eggnog but that’s besides the point). My doorman shared a cookie with me his daughter baked, it was part burnt and part yummy, his daughter is 5. I went shopping at 5:00 am this week just to see what kind of freaks did it. They all looked normal like me 🙂 I volunteer during most of the month of December at a Sr Citizens hospice in my old neighborhood. I get everything from bottles of Champagne and wine to a pair of fingered socks with smilie faces on the toes to a dancing M&M filled with mini M&M’s this year. Not to mention funny holiday cards, cards with new kids I haven’t seen yet, cards from a friend in Korea, another in Iraq, from a friend I had long forgotten, emails, text messages and the shoving and pushing on trains to remind me of the season.

    All these things are “out of the norm” and hence qualify as a celebration. If you are far away from all things others tell you are the norm this time of the year, make your own traditions and celebrate. There are no rules to celebrations especially when you are single. Do what makes you happy. That is perfectly good enough to count as a celebration. 🙂

  31. I haven’t really celebrated Christmas for quite a long time. But then, its the same for almost every other festival. Back in my childhood days, my mom and dad did secretly tuck my gift under my pillow at night. I even remember my mom taking me to a nearby church on Christmas once.

    In high-school (which wasn’t at all affiliated with Christianity) however, we did have Christmas celebrations. We recited Christmas prayers during the morning assembly, had a small Christmas class-party, and since it was the day before winter-break there were no studies. In fact, something I loved about high-school was the real secular environment we studied in (and I realized it only after coming to the US). The daily prayers used to be of a different religion every day.

  32. Anna, thanks for a lovely post, and Merry Christmas, Mutineers!

    Christmas was very big in South Calcutta/Kolkata when I was growing up, with weeks of garden parties, dances and other colonial rituals and entertainments that everyone had co-opted long since — potted balsam Christmas trees, marching bands playing Come September and Auld Lang Syne, camel and elephant rides, Firpo’s plum cake with an inch of marzipan under the thin, crisp, hard icing, horses, horses, horses (and the bright colors of racing silks, everyone watching races from outside and inside the race course, bookies and regular folks perched on trees, kids on the roofs of cars parked by the starting post), Midnight Mass at the school chapel, the Anglo-Indian panhandler who sang “Together Again” from Middleton Row to Harrington Street, cabarets at Prince’s, sucking pigs with big apples in their little roasted mouths. I’ve never had a Christmas to match ever since!

  33. Merry secular Christmas! 😉 I am sitting here at work after writing a few articles today…my brother and dad are starting a dinner at home. It wasn’t much worth to do a big fancy Christmas since my mom is in India this year. We did a Jersey Shore Christmas instead–no snow (I’m from Minnesota, so I miss it alot!), no tree, but my dad did make a fake tree by putting gifts underneath a vase of flowers, so we could have something to open. It was really sweet!

    I can’t wait to finish my shift and run home to what I consider the true meaning of any holiday, Christian, Hindu or Muslim–spending time with my family. And eating, of course.

  35. I went shopping at 5:00 am this week just to see what kind of freaks did it. They all looked normal like me 🙂

    Oh, but JoAT, I assure you they are. Freaks. 😉

  36. Oh, but JoAT, I assure you they are. Freaks. 😉

    Hehehe I love it. There were two guys at Home Depot arguing over who was going to take the last fiberglass stepladder. It was fun to watch. Yeah I actually went to HD @ 5:00 am. Me, my dad and half of the town of Valley Stream NY. We thought we were getting there early, instead we had to park and walk from way far away, the lot was full.

  37. Merry Xmas everyone. Sorry, I am somewhat tired of these articles. I wish they were better written. The defiant brown mother, the tyrannical father, the mustard seed and smells of various ethnic foods, dark brown skin contrasted with everything else, growing up wanting to be american but eventually coming to terms with your indianness…it’s been done before. I guess WaPo readers can’t get enough, though. Again, not meant to offend, I just wish these kinds of articles were wittier, funnier or just better conceptualized.

    Happy holidaze.

  38. My Parents have a Jesus and Mary up on their mantle, right next to Buddha….and of course Ganesh.

    I probably know more about Christmas than Durga Puja at this point in my life. While this is something I plan to rectify (Hello, New Year’s Resolution!), everyone is so warm it’s hard not to be get into the Christmas spirit here in America.

    Merry Christmas All

  40. I had Christmas dinner last night because my mum does one of those Hindu immigrant I-don’t-eat-meat-on-Monday deals. So last night we had some lobster tails and lamb chops. Delicious.

    Merry Christmas.

  41. Perhaps it was my mom’s black cake, but I momentarily got that warm Little Match girlesque glow after reading Nitya’s story. But after reading post #37, I realized that maybe cloying sterotypes were thicker than my mom’s punch-a-creme. Sorry, Nitya, I don’t mean to be a hater, but I hope there was enough tinsel left over for your dad to decorate that short-end of a Christmas tree that he got.

  44. Merry x-mas to everybody. I hope I am not too late with my wishes.

    Anna – thats a lovely post. Xmas is pretty fun for me, especially because my neighbors while I was growing up were Anglo-Indians. The way they celebrated the festival is unmatched for by any other xian family that I have known. I used to be in their home all the holiday time, except for the time they all went to Sunday mass.

  47. What’s wrong with Third World? Plenty of my friends who are from and live in the Third World use it to define their bloc, none of them uses the “global south”. It may be archaic now that the second world is gone, but it’s still the most commonly used term.

  50. While Christmas is certainly associated with the birth of Christ, there is another side that remains entirely secular. The origin of the Christmas tree is German, I think. Needless to say I don’t think putting up a tree and giving gifts during Christmas qualifies as sacreligious for non-Christians anymore than it counts as a religious ceremony for Christians.

    Still the association is there and the urge to belong and be a part of community celebration is a strong one. Personally I was quite touched when my Hindu mother and father-in-law brought down the tree from the attic after some 14 years of storage during our first multi-cultural Christmas.

    Superb article and nice job ANNA.

    Merry Christmas to all. God is love, love one another (no exceptions)..I saw that on a bumpersticker once.