What’s a Jew to Do on Christmas Day? Go Where the Wild Things Are!
Me Being a Total Hypocrite
I don’t like Christmas. There, I said it. To some, that may be the disdainful equivalent of hating puppies or ice cream, but the thing is, I wasn’t one of those Jewish kids raised to simply refrain from the celebration, I was raised to be suspicious of it. While some (suspect) Jews deign to have Christmas trees and revel in the green and red lights, ornaments and glitter decorating every storefront, window, and building in sight, I do not. I am the annoyed type'”kind of like a Yiddish Scrooge (although in my opinion, Dickens gave Ebenezer a pretty Jewy-sounding name). My goyishe friends have attempted to make me warm up to the holiday by inviting me over on the 25th, and I have hypocritically enjoyed myself, but ultimately I’m sticking to my scroogish guns.
Donald Duck as Ebenezer Scrooge or a Disgruntled Jew?
You see, we wandered the desert for 40 years only to find that on several of the major holidays, we are doomed to wander eternally while everyone else eats poo-brown sugar cookies (when the young’uns accidentally combine the red and green food coloring) and makes out under some poison-oak-looking twig hanging from the rafters. Plus there’s nothing for us Christ-killers to do on Christmas since everything is closed except movie theatres (which are crammed with a bunch of other Jews and I pretty much don’t want to hang out with them either'”I’m an equal opportunist hater).
Where the Jewish Things Are
But this year is the exception. The Contemporary Jewish Museum has a sense of humor about all of these Christmas shenanigans, plus a good eye for business. They will be the only museum open for business on Christmas day and will be exhibiting the works of one of the most inspiring Jews of all time: Maurice Sendak (he’s the author of Where the Wild Things Are, for those of you that didn’t have a childhood or grew up under a rock). Not only will the CJM be open, there will be FREE admission all day. And that’s a pretty big move'”our people don’t usually like to give things away for free.
There’s A Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak
Friday, December 25th, 11am-4pm
The Contemporary Jewish Museum
736 Mission St. btwn 3rd St. & 4th St.
FREE
