Today I went out with my wife to buy a Christmas tree. Right after we got ours, this Subaru pulled in with Amherst College and Putney School stickers, driven by a little guy with glasses and an ironical expression, and his goodlooking son and his girlfriend got out and started picking out trees, and I thought, There's another Jewish-Christmas.
On our way back I issued my annual complaint about the requirements of Christmas, and my wife said forcefully, "You have no choice, you have to celebrate your wife's holidays, and I'll celebrate yours."
It had an anthropological ring, and reminded me of advice my wife had given me when I first met her family. It was something of a struggle, and she said, When meeting strangers, you should be one part Thomas Jefferson (diplomatic), one part Margaret Mead (curious), and one part Eddie Haskell from the TV show "Leave It to Beaver" (a suckup). She had never needed the advice herself, but I had; back then I was 90 percent Eddie Haskell. I asked her where she'd gotten this advice, and she said she'd read it somewhere. I've googled it without turning it up. But I'm going to try and practice it after all.
