Well, I've been doing Christmas in England since 1989 and I still haven't worked out why the Brits seem to think turkey counts as festive food. Any suggestions?
Being Jewish, I have this in-built expectation that festive food would have some symbolic meaning. I also have an in-built expectation that we would sit around the table telling the story, singing songs about it, remembering what we're celebrating. Maybe one day I'll trying writing a Christmas haggadah...
It just feels so weird. What have all these customs got to do with the birth of the saviour of the world? A decorated tree, tinsel, holly, turkey and stuffing, Brussels sprouts and sausages... But the worst bit as far as I'm concerned is this utterly ridiculous business of pulling the crackers, reading out the awful jokes, putting on a silly paper hat, and trying to muster some enthusiasm about the plastic toy or novelty keyring or whatever it was that you were "lucky" enough to get in your cracker.
And then there's the exchanging of gifts, which is an art - due to the unwritten rule of not appearing to be greedy, you have to take your time and look quite nonchalant about the whole thing, as if you don't really mind if you don't get anything at all; but then, when you do unwrap one of your presents, you must suddenly switch to boundless joy and excitement or you will seem ungrateful.
Mind you, I didn't have to pretend to get excited by the thesaurus I was given yesterday - oops, I shouldn't have confessed, now that you know I own one I won't be able to get away with too much repetition of the same word...
