O Christmas Tree!

It all comes down to the Christmas tree.

I met with Rabbi B with the final questions about my conversion. I was expecting questions about renouncing things...like deity kind of things or maybe bacon.

I had practiced an answer that I thought I could live with regarding The Jesus Question. If I was asked if I believed that Jesus was God I would have felt comfortable saying, "To some people." I really do believe that for some people Jesus totally represents God. And for me? I'll admit I don't really have an answer to that. I have always thought that God was in all of us. So, if that is the case than I am God and Jesus is God. And so then the question should be if I believe Jesus existed. And my answer to that would be: I don't know. I don't believe that the Bible or Torah or probably any "Holy Book" is a re-telling of actual events. So, there you have it. I would have tried to get out of any official denouncing. And also, I would want to hang on to bacon, except during Passover.

But those questions didn't even come up. The big thing that came up was that we (the whole family) shouldn't be having a Christmas Tree. Stockings would be o.k. but a Tree...too much. I said, "Talk to the kids." She knew that we always vote on having a Christmas Tree and the kids always vote to have one and I'm on the fence and my husband...well, it was his idea to finally buy a plastic one to drag out every year (that doesn't smell as good, but is soooo much easier).

I have been on the fence about a tree for awhile now. I know what it means to us and it is not religious at all. If anything it represents something worse: spending money on stuff we don't need and buying into the commercialism of the whole holiday season. And I also feel like the kids miss out on the shared experience of Jews throughout history of going to the movies and eating Chinese food.

Before talking to Rabbi B this week I had already told my husband that I wasn't sure if we should have a tree anymore. We always used my growing up with one as the reason or excuse or whatever for getting one. And then we just really love having the glow of the lights and then there's decorating the tree with ornaments that I've had since I was a really little kid. And the ornaments we got when we had each of our kids. And the Elvis ornaments. And the Larry Bird ornament (he was allowed because he's wearing green and green is a Christmas color according to Hallmark). But I was ready to give all of that up. All for my new religion. Until I was told that I should.

And that's me in a nutshell. I might do anything until someone tells me that I should, ought to, or (and this is a sure fire thing to make me not do it) need to do it. So I should stop having a Christmas Tree? Great, now if I get one I'll feel guilty and if I don't I'll feel like I was bullied into it. Either way this should be a great Christmas. And someone at our synagogue recently asked me if I wanted to wait until after Christmas to convert so I could say good bye to Christ or Christmas. And I started to say that we'll probably put up our tree the day after the conversion, but stopped because we started talking about Christmas in general. And no one seemed upset, but that must have been when Rabbi B registered in her mind, "Must talk to Karen about the Tree Thing."

After The Tree Talk, I talked to another convert and she said, "Call it a Chanukah Bush like we do and then it's okay." But I don't want to do that. I don't know what I want to do. I do think it would be silly to keep getting a tree. Once our whole little family is officially Jewish than having a tree would not feel right. Will I miss it? Sure. I do like the idea of still having stockings. It will be cheaper not having to do presents other than a few from Santa (who is Jewish, by the way. I wonder if he has a tree?). And we already have too much stuff.

This year I think we'll go see HSM3 and then go to Golden Phoenix Restaurant. After eating all the candy from our stockings.