Things I wish I didn't overhear on Christmas

• I was laying in bed at 10:30 pm in Washington DC. The flight didn't go so well. There was so much turbulence that the insides of my stomach had become the outsides of my stomach. Twice. And there were no barf bags on our row of the airplane, so Abraham and I were the collateral damage. The airplane steward meekly handed me a wet paper towel. To make things worse, the traffic circles of DC had me resting my head out the window of Abraham's sister's car. So I was laying in bed while the rest of Abraham's family was visiting in the living room. I heard two words very distinctly, "Propose" and "Christmas," followed by an exasperated Abraham, "SHHH."


• Propose... Christmas? But Abraham is Jewish. I knew he wouldn't propose on Christmas in front of just one half of my broken family. My mother didn't put up a tree this year. My father told me no one else was coming to his house on Christmas. I put the thought out of my mind, and, frankly, I forgot about it.


• We had finished Christmas at my mother's house and I began the hour-long drive to my father's. Abraham was pretty insistent that I find a gas station to stop at so he could buy some beer. It struck me as odd because my mother makes him more nervous than my father does, and he didn't even drink at my mother's. Abraham got beer and began drinking it immediately at my father's house.


• By this time we had been traveling extensively for the past 6 days visiting our different families in 4 different states. I was fatigued. My head drooped into the couch pillows with my cosmopolitan in hand. I was fighting a bad cold. Abraham said he was going outside to visit with my father while he grilled the steaks. Abraham is shy and has never spoken to any of my family one on one, but I wasn't being any worthwhile company myself.


• In the car while we were driving home, Abraham announced that my father wanted to meet his parents. Apparently my father even offered to drive halfway up the East coast to meet them. My father is a very outgoing person, and I was a little surprised I didn't hear my father say this five times at the dinner table. I never heard him say it at all. 


• Abraham's mother kept phoning him. Once when we were at my father's house, once in the car as we drove home and once again when we reached his home. The only person to call like that is my mother, not his. Abraham walked out of the bedroom and closed the door behind him. Usually he talks to his mom on speakerphone.


• And then it hit me: the beer... talking to my father alone outside... my father wanting to meet his parents... his mother's incessant phone calls... the secrecy... propose... Christmas... 


• Abraham had asked my father permission to marry me.  

DDF Revolve 400X Micro-Polishing System

For most of my twenties, I was able to eat whatever I want and fall into bed with a full face of smudged makeup without any skin repercussions. This is not true anymore in my thirties. I’ve had to invest in night cream and a skin cleanser and a skin exfoliator.

Products are expensive. I went to one of those in-home product shows and was introduced to a skin care line that cost over $230. Trying to be polite I asked the consultant if she only had one product to sell, which one would it be.

“All of them,” she smiled.

“Let me rephrase this,” I said curtly. “If you could only afford to buy one item, which would it be?”

“All of them. It’s such a great deal.”

It’s not a great deal. It’s $230.00 for crap I didn’t know I needed before entering the room. I’ve stayed with the basics, my skin cleanser and skin exfoliator.

Doctor’s Dermatology Formula, or DDF, is a Proctor & Gamble company, the parent company over many of your favorite personal care brands. DDF is releasing into the competitive skin care market its new cleansing system, called the DDF Revolve 400X Micro-Polishing System, which, get this, is a skin cleanser and skin exfoliator in one.

The premise behind the device is simple:

For deep cleaning, use it once a day with the cleansing brush.
For exfoliation, use it twice a week with the foam exfoliator and polishing crystals.

The device adapts to your skin’s sensitivity needs. Just change the rotation speed. To discover your personalized recommended skin care regime with the DDF Revolve 400X Micro-Polishing System, use the DDF Skin Consultation Tool.

That stupid skin consultant lady said her skin care line cost $230.00. Competitors’ cleaning systems retail for $120.00 – 150.00. DDF is running a special offer on the DDF Revolve 400X Micro-Polishing System. From now through January 31st, enter code DDFMICRODERMA and get the system for $45.00 US, including free shipping. This is over 50% off the retail cost! The system includes the DDF Micro-Polisher, Cleansing Brush, Foam Exfoliator and a tube of the Polishing Crystals.

Reindeer Games

I didn't know I was dating a Grinch.

Okay, that is neither an entirely fair nor accurate statement. He's not a Grinch. He's a Jew, and Christmas is not his holiday. Within the next year or so, it will no longer be my holiday but a tradition I celebrate with my parents.

But Abraham, he hates Christmas. He cannot walk past a trimmed tree or holiday decoration without making a snarky comment. He groans at every carol. And don't show him the Lexus commercials with the big red bows. It's enough to make him shout in anger.

I don't know his reasoning for hating the holiday. My guess is that it's so commercialized and in your face and excluding of him.

I love the holiday. Christmas will be the hardest thing that I will have to give up when I convert. I love making cookies and drinking hot apple cider. I love acknowledging the season by decorating the house. My Christmas dishes are the only thing I inherited from my paternal grandmother. (I'm not getting rid of her dishes.)

I thought about it. I can still make the cookies and drink the wassail. I can still acknowledge the season. Hang a blue wreath on my door. But the one thing I cannot part with is my Christmas tree.

My Christmas tree is my living history. It has the ornaments I collected throughout the years. The one of my alma mater. The dangling picture of the Femme Fatale frightened next to a very unconvincing Santa. The fabric gingerbread man from my childhood. I just can't give it up. I feel like to give up my tree would be denying who I was and where I came from.

Abraham and I are supposed to be creating a life together, not me melding into his life. So when I very carefully explained the importance of the Christmas tree, he sighed and agreed we could have one. I ordered a beautiful, handmade, stained-glass Star of David for the tree topper. I dug out of the closet his single ornament of South Park's Kyle holding a Menorah and hung it front and center. This tree wouldn't be mine; it would be ours.

This morning, before I went to work, I admired our tree. And then I looked closer. Abraham had purchased his own ornaments and hung them up without telling me. They were shiny plastic stars and bells of his alma mater.

"They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games," I whispered softly.