Merry-After-Christmas-Shopping-Sale-Frenzy Day! Never one to venture out into the streets (or malls) on this most chaotic of days, I'm safely ensconced in the office (and actually working, though not at this precise moment) and recovering from yet another food-n-fun filled Jewish Christmas.
Christmas Eve brings us the Matzah Ball, an annual gathering of youngish Jewish folks. Alas, I've never actually had fun at the Matzah Ball. It's always too dark, too loud, and too crowded for me to actually communicate with anyone. Last year was truly awful. I'd expected to be deep in the backcountry on a hut trip with my boyfriend of nearly a year, but he'd summarily dumped me just ten days before. Needless to say, I was in no condition to be out in public, let alone confronted with the cold hard reality of the Jewish singles scene. I wound up sitting at a table in a corner with my friend Britt, drinking waaaaaaaaaaay too many Cosmopolitans and making snarky comments about the sea of dorks in which we were swimming.
So this year, I refused to pay $30 to watch hordes of Jews in their 20s and 30s hit on one another. I do have a wonderful boyfriend, after all, and don't need to subject myself to the madness. But against my better judgment, I agreed to go downtown to a pre-party at another LoDo bar. The best thing about this party was its cost: zippo. On all other fronts, it was a mini-Matzah Ball, complete with too-low lighting, too-loud music, and a too-nebbishy crowd.
To further complicate things, the friend I came with disappeared to check out his prospects, leaving me with his best friend's girlfriend, who had arrived just that day from Hong Kong. Not only was her English marginal (though far, far better than my Chinese), she had that Asian-girl habit of speaking very softly and covering her mouth, making it utterly impossible for me to understand her. I tried to explain the niceties of "How To Communicate With Madeline," but to no avail. She finally gave up on me, leaving me to lean against the bar and try to make sense of the dim shapes moving around me. A few brave souls tried to strike up conversation with me, which was initially flattering but ultimately ended in my embarrassment and the poor boys' frustrated departure. Finally, after my free drink tickets ran out, I decided to throw in the towel and caught a cab for home.
Christmas day is known in the Cohen household as "Mommy's Birthday," and so has always been an important day of family activity. I arrived in Boulder mid-morning, in time for a delicious brunch at the home of one of my parents' friends, who splits her time between selling overpriced Boulder County real estate and turning out fabulous meals.
After brunch, it was time for the traditional family Christmas day activities: watching a movie and eating Chinese food. Usually, we see whatever blockbuster epic is released on Christmas Day, but after suffering through Martin Scorsese's irredeemably awful Gangs of New York last year, mom wanted something lighter. So lighter we found, in the form of Steve Martin's remake of Cheaper By The Dozen. This was good for a few laughs, but obviously had been rushed to a Christmas release, since you could actually see the boom mike in a couple of shots and there were glaring consistency problems with the story (the ages of the Baker children, for example). But at least it was the first movie I've seen in a couple of months that did not last for three hours.
After my mother's birthday treasure hunt (another long-standing family tradition that perhaps I will explain at a later date), we met several friends at the Orchid Pavillion for Chinese food. One of the women is Chinese, and she had pre-ordered the entire meal, including many dishes not found on the menu. In between wolfing down the delicious (if a tad un-spicy for my taste) food, we greeted the steady stream of fellow Jews that flowed through the restaurant. At times, it appeared that the entire synagogue was in attendance. In fact, after the birthday cake arrived and we'd eaten token bites, my mother strolled around the restaurant offering pieces to her friends at neighboring tables.
True, it's not Santa and stockings and turkey and caroling, but as we sat around the table listening to my parents' friends re-tell the story of how Roberta Flack flew them to Aspen on an hour's notice for a New Year's Eve party at the home of a Saudi prince, I sat back and enjoyed the warm feeling of Christmas tradition.