Friday was the last day of school before the winter break, and yet I still hadn’t heard anything from either Jacob or Dad. If I didn’t hear from him by the end of the school day, I was gonna hafta confront him when he got home. However, later that day I finally got a response from Dad. He sent me an email:
Dear Kyle,
I’m sorry it took me so long to respond to Jacob, but there was much to arrange. I had the item engraved, giftwrapped, boxed and delivered by courier to my office, where it will remain under lock and key until Christmas. I hope you don’t mind that Ken and I coopted part of your gift, but the gift will still be from you and your friends and he’ll still have the internship from Ken and me. There’s no way I can let you spend that much on a gift for Freck. There’s no way I can let Jacob take such a loss either.
Jacob and I go way back and I’ve bought several watches from him. The menorah we light every year at Hanukkah is one I bought from his shop before you were even born. The candlestick holders we use every Friday night and the Seder plate we use at Passover every year are also from his shop. Jacob’s a fantastic jeweler and he designs his own watches. If you look closely, you’ll notice his name engraved on the dials of a few of mine. He always gives his loyal customers a substantial discount, but when you consider his overhead, fifty percent amounts to a loss. He really wanted Freck to have that watch. I’ll make up the difference.
So I’ll take Asher and Seth’s thousand, and I’ll take a thousand from your savings, and Ken and I will cover the rest. Other than yourself, Ken and I, no one will know that you and your friends didn’t pay the full cost of the watch. Consider it our gift to both of you.
Love, Dad
Damn! At first I was angry that Dad had taken it upon himself to put a limit on how much I could spend on Freck, but then I realized that I’d have probably felt the same way if I were in his shoes. And he was right too – it really was as much a gift to me as it was a gift to Freck, as I really had intended to pay the full cost myself. Thanks to Dad, I’d be able to get my boyfriend a very special gift for his thirteenth birthday and Freck would get to own the watch he loved. Not only that, but Jacob would still be able to pay the rent.
That night was the premier of the new Star Wars movie, and we had tickets! Star Wars wasn’t really my thing, but Freck was a Star Wars fanatic and just watching his enthusiasm made it all worthwhile. We could’ve gone to see it in a number of theaters, but the official New York premier was held at the AMC Lincoln Square, the largest IMAX theater in the city. We met Asher and Seth there, as they’d also purchased tickets for themselves for the premier. Even I had to admit the movie was awesome, and Freck was in absolute heaven, thrilled to see the concluding episode of his favorite sci-fi series of all time, in 3D on the biggest screen in NYC. We even got to keep the limited-edition 3D glasses and a signed movie poster as keepsakes. How cool was that?
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Two nights later was the first night of Hanukkah, but I had something else in mind for that Sunday. After a pleasant Sunday brunch at the Riverdale Diner, our Dads took us up up US Highway 9A to the Taconic State Parkway, a multi-lane divided highway that eventually became a scenic, winding road. Freck got more and more curious as we drove further away from the city, particularly when we left the highway behind, and still we drove on, revealing nothing. Finally, we turned off at a place called Hopewell Junction, just past crossing Interstate 84. We drove a bit further until we came to a sign advertising Christmas trees, and we turned in.
“We’re getting a Christmas tree?” Freck asked. “But we’re Jewish.”
I liked that Freck considered himself Jewish, but that wasn’t the point. “I’m sure we won’t be the only Jewish family in Riverdale with a Christmas tree, Babe, although a lot of them will be called Hanukkah bushes. The point is that you were raised Roman Catholic and even though you’re not religious, you shouldn’t have to give up celebrating Christmas, just because we aren’t Christian,” I explained.”
“The way my parents celebrated…” Freck began, “well, it wasn’t very Christian. Then again, Christmas wasn’t even Jesus’ real birthday.”
“And if you think we celebrate Hanukkah by lighting a menorah for eight nights in a row, because a lamp with only a few drops of oil in it miraculously burned for eight days, you’re more gullible than I thought,” I countered. “We celebrate Hanukkah because the Jews finally fought back against their oppressors and actually managed to defeat the Greek Army. That is the real meaning of Hanukkah.”
“I guess you could say that Christmas represents the beginning of Christianity, for better and for worse,” Freck added, “but it also represents the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire and the victory of faith over a world ruled by paganism and fear.”
“Let’s go pick out a tree,” Jake suggested. “If we place it in the foyer, there’s a good twenty feet from floor to ceiling, so an eighteen-foot tree should fit perfectly.” What a terrific idea! The front entrance overlooked a circular, two-story foyer, which led into the great room. A curved stairway led from the entrance down to the great room, and then continued down to the lower level, and then the rec room, where the pool was located. The tree would be perfect in the space, but it would be a huge one and it would take all of us to lower it down into place.
It didn’t take long for us to spot a great tree, but I knew from watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation that what looked small in the lot wouldn’t be so small in the house. Jake’s Subaru Forrester was a good fifteen feet in length, which still left a few feet of tree sticking off the front and back, once it had been cut down and tied to the car. One thing was for sure – what appeared to be a nice, winding, scenic road on the way up became a much scarier route on the way back home.
On the way back, we stopped at the Lowe’s in Yorktown Heights, where we picked up a large tree stand and everything we would need to trim and decorate the tree. When we got home, I discovered that Dad and Ken had already given a lot of thought to how to lower the tree into place… and how to get it back out. I’d figured we’d lower it down through the front door, but that would’ve involved dropping it some twelve feet to the lower level, and getting it back out wouldn’t have been possible. Instead, we wheeled the tree on a set of dollies around back onto the terrace and through the great room. Using rope and a pully attached to the upper stair railing, we were then able to lower the trunk down and into the tree stand. We then used the same pulley on the upper railing to pull the tree the rest of the way to vertical and to secure it in place. To remove the tree, we could simply reverse the process.
Decorating an eighteen-foot tree turned out to be much more of a challenge than we’d expected, as even with a step ladder, the higher branches were out of reach. It took a fair bit of creativity to get the strings of lights and ornaments in place, but when we finally plugged it all in, the effort was worth it. The star on top of the tree was something I’d have never expected. Dad had somehow managed to find online a lighted six-pointed Star of David to top the tree.
When we were all done, Freck said, “You know, all the years of celebrating Christmas in the condo, my parents always paid professionals to decorate the tree. At least it was a real tree and not an artificial one – an artificial tree would have never satisfied my parents in their quest for perfection, but neither would have a tree decorated by their kids, so they paid professionals to do it. This is the first time in my life that I actually got to decorate a Christmas tree and you know what? It looks a thousand times better than any tree my parents ever had.”
By the time we finished decorating the tree, it was well after sunset and the time we were supposed to light the menorah, but better late than never, so we sang the prayers and lit the first candle of Hanukkah. We were all starved but it was way too late to cook anything ourselves, so we ordered a traditional meal of latkes, or potato pancakes, from the Riverside Diner. There’d be plenty of time for Freck to ‘enjoy’ the experience of making them from scratch during the coming week.
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I offered to go with Freck to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, but he was thrilled to have the option of not going for a change. We slept in the following morning, then awoke on Christmas Day to what, at least for me, was merely a day off from school. Both dads were already at work, making rounds at New York Presbyterian Hospital. They’d both volunteered to take call on Christmas as they often did. They’d be home by early afternoon, in time for us to celebrate a Jewish Christmas together.
“Hey, there’s nothing under the tree,” Freck exclaimed as he padded downstairs in his usual weekend attire, which although a day early, was his birthday suit. I was similarly attired and Roger, as usual, wore his day-old boxers with a t-shirt.
“We get our Hanukkah gifts on the last night of Hanukkah,” I pointed out, “and you’ll get your gifts tomorrow for your birthday in any case.”
“You don’t even have any stockings hung by the fireplace with care,” Freck complained.
“We don’t have a fireplace,” I pointed out.
“A mere technicality,” Freck countered.
“Are you guys as hungry as I am?” Roger asked.
“You kidding me? I could eat a pig,” Freck answered.
“Not in this house, you won’t,” Roger responded, “but how about making some authentic Hanukkah latkes?”
“Sounds good to me,” I answered.
“Count me in,” Freck chimed in. Little did he know what was involved.
Holding up a bag of each, Roger asked, “Russet, or sweet potato?”
“Sweet potato!” Freck and I answered simultaneously. Sweet potato might not be traditional for latkes, but sweet potato latkes are so good.
Roger handed us the bag of sweet potatoes and Freck and I started scrubbing and peeling the potatoes while Roger used our food processor to slice and dice a medium onion. He then grated the sweet potatoes using the food processor while Freck mixed a couple large eggs with two tablespoons of flour in a large mixing bowl. Roger drained the onions and the potatoes of all excess water, and we then blended them in with the eggs and flour, and then formed them into patties. Finally, Roger fried the latkes in canola oil in a large skillet while I made the coffee.
I put a tub of low-fat sour cream and a jar of organic apple sauce on the table, and we proceeded to eat our creation. Man, were those potato pancakes good! They were a first for Freck, who couldn’t get enough of them. Afterwards, we showered and dressed, not knowing when the dads would be home.
The dads didn’t get home until a little after three o’clock, which left scant time to get downtown, eat at a Chinese restaurant and catch a movie. Frankly, I wasn’t all that interested in seeing another movie, as we’d just seen the Star Wars premier and there was nothing else that I really wanted to see. The bigger issue was that it was usually Mom who made the dinner reservations and, in her absence, Dad forgot about it. There was no way we could get a reservation for Christmas Dinner at the last minute, so that meant trying our luck as a walk-in.
“Could you get us a reservation at the Ragin’ Cajun?” Ken asked.
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