Chapter 15 Christmas compromise
Life is so much simpler when family isn’t involved. This is what Leah decided when she and Gabe were back in Manhattan during the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was a perfect month, mostly.
They enjoyed NYC’s first snowfall and drank peppermint hot chocolates while walking through different holiday markets. They ate candy canes and donated spare change to the Santas around the city collecting donations for the Salvation Army.
It wasn’t lost on Leah that everything in the “holiday spirit” came in red and white. Sometimes there would be some blue in there, some stands at the holiday markets had menorahs, which Leah didn’t mention to anyone was different than a Hanukkiah, the candelabra used to light candles on Hanukkah. A menorah has seven candle holders while a Hanukkiah has nine, eight for the days of Hanukkah and one for the Shamash, the candle used to light the others. A menorah was a great symbol of Judaism but had just as much to do with Hanukkah as matzah. This never bothered Leah in previous years in New York. She’d always loved the novelty of Christmas because she had grown up pretending it didn’t exist. So since living in Manhattan, she’d made every effort to try every type of eggnog and peppermint delight she could find. But this year, she felt slightly slighted that Hanukkah was an afterthought.
The month without family also included conversations about their wedding. Fall was a good time, they agreed. Not only because it was convenient for Shira, but because a fall wedding could be beautiful. It also gave them a lot of time to plan, which they agreed they needed without saying that part of that was investing time to get their families on board.
A fall wedding in the city would be perfect. They decided not to use Leah’s synagogue nor Gabe’s church. A middle ground—both physically and figuratively—made the most sense. But after looking up Manhattan wedding venues, they realized that the middle ground was even farther away from their budget than either of them could imagine. So they stopped discussing this further.
They’d talked about a secular wedding ceremony that could include some of their traditions. Gabe agreed to stand under a Chuppah, but said he didn’t feel comfortable breaking the glass. Leah understood.
Leah wasn’t working much those days. As Club Business was spun off from Diamond Media and subsequently, it was decided that the magazine would be shut down due to lack of profitability, there wasn’t much for Leah to do. She had a job until the end of the year, but come January 1, she would be unemployed. It would give her time to wedding plan, she thought, although she wasn’t sure how much planning she could do if she didn’t have funds to pay for the wedding. She also wasn’t sure how much financial help they’d be getting from their parents.
This magical limbo between Thanksgiving and Christmas came to an end a few days before the holiday. Leah was at Diamond Media’s holiday party that Club Business employees were graciously invited to.
She grabbed a glass of wine from one of the servers on the top floor of the Diamond Media building that had a beautiful view of downtown. She could see One World Trade Center on one side and the Statue of Liberty on the other. It was too bad this would be her last time up here.
“What are you planning on doing?” a whisper came from behind her and she saw Malcolm standing there with a plate overfilled with hors d’oeuvres.
She shrugged. “You?”
“I’ll be backpacking in Uruguay,” Malcolm responded. “I got a deal from Travel + Leisure to document my trip for them.”
“You are going to be a travel writer?” Leah was honestly surprised. In the years she had been at Club Business, Malcolm had not written a single word for the magazine. He was strictly about data analysis, supporting all the writers with their own stories.
“You think I can’t write?”
“I thought you were more of a numbers guy,” Leah responded.
Malcolm chuckled. “I am more versatile than you think. Have you tried this bruschetta?” Bru-ske-ta, he pronounced it with an Italian accent.
Leah shook her head. She hadn’t found the food table yet.
“It’s delicious,” he said, offering her a bite. She refused and he stuffed it in his mouth. “I can’t wait to try Uruguayan food.” He looked around. “Did you hear about Keith?” Keith was one of the junior reporters at Club Business. Leah was friendly with them but hadn’t become close with any. Since Mark and Alex left, she didn’t have any real friends at work anymore.
She shook her head.
“Keith got an offer from Bloomberg,” Malcolm said. “And Steve is going to The Wall Street Journal.”
How was it that the junior reporters and Malcolm had all found new, prestigious jobs and she hadn’t? She’d had a few interviews, lots of people who promised to call her or consider her when something opened up, but not one offer. She downed her wine. “I’m going to go check out that bruschetta,” she said and walked away.
“Rosenberg!” Tony called her name when she was almost at the buffet table. “How are you doing?”
“Fine,” she responded. “You?”
“Ha!” he smirked. “I’m angry, pissed off, feeling like an old fart, a mix of a lot of things. Getting ready to avoid depression as I become a full-time dad when no one hires me. I have all this wisdom! All this experience! But no one is interested! You haven’t told me where you’re going yet, Rosenberg. What’s the plan?”
“No plan yet,” she said.
“You’ll find something,” he said. “You’re young. You can always go back to school if you want. Maybe get that MBA people always think you already have.”
She smiled and then grabbed a few hors d’oeuvres. She wasn’t planning on staying long, these things were no fun when everyone was just a colleague. She said hi to Brittany, who had sort of been her friend, but Brittany had her own friends from Teen Club, and people from Teen Club didn’t want to talk to people from Club Business—the brand that had died.
She ate a few things, drank some more wine, and said goodbye to everyone, because that was it. The office was closed until New Year’s when it would be officially shut down. She left the party and went home where Gabe was sitting on the couch.
“You want to pack up for tomorrow?” he asked.
“Pack?”
“Christmas is in two days,” he said. “My parents really want me to come home this year to spend it with them.”
“They aren’t on a cruise or something?” Leah asked. Gabe hadn’t gone home for Christmas since they had gone together a few years back. Since then, his parents were always traveling on the holidays.
Gabe shook his head. “It was important to my mom that we spend Christmas together this year.”
Any other year Leah would have understood. She would have packed and went with him to celebrate Christmas with his family. But this year was different. It doesn’t happen often, but every few years the first night of Hanukkah, which is on the 25 of Kislev in the Hebrew calendar, falls on the 24 th of December, meaning the first candle would be lit on Christmas Eve. Leah had thought they’d celebrate the two holidays together in their apartment with the small tree they’d decorated and light the candles together. If they went to Gabe’s parents, what about the candles? Would they offer to incorporate her traditions into theirs? Would she seem inconsiderate if she asked them to?
Leah thought back to the last Christmas she had spent with his family. They ate at his brother’s house, which was decorated like a Hallmark movie, and listened to screaming children run around and jump all over their uncle Gabe. Leah remembered Gabe told her that night that he didn’t want kids, because of the example his brother set. Because of how rowdy the kids were and how boring his brother became when he entered fatherhood. Leah hoped Gabe wouldn’t be reminded of that again this year.
“You know Hanukkah starts this year on Christmas Eve,” she said.
“Well, you have eight nights, so we can celebrate it after we get back to the city,” he responded.
“That’s not really how it works,” she said. “Every night is different. The first night is special, it’s the only time we say the shehecheyanu. ” The shehecheyanu was a special Jewish prayer for special occasions. People say it when blessing something new or unusual, something special like the first night of Hanukkah.
“So we’ll say the she … sheke … shekeyu ? We’ll say the prayer another night.” Gabe couldn’t remember the name of the prayer.
Should she give up Hanukkah for Gabe? At least the first night? Was this what their marriage would always be about?
“Fine,” she agreed. She knew she would have to compromise if they wanted their marriage to work. At least if she compromised this time, maybe next time, he would.