If your ho-ho has become ho-hum, try something new this year — with a little imagination, you can always reinvent a reason for the season. Interviews with some folks who made the holidays theirs.


# 1 Make it Last a Little Longer

My partner and I have been together for, like, 21 years. … Holidays were often kind of problematic early on in our relationship because we would try and spend time with our families of origin and we weren’t out to them then. And so we wouldn’t necessarily be together on the holidays. … At Christmas, we celebrate by ourselves, just the two of us here in Boston. We usually pick some day in the week before Christmas, and that’s Christmas for us and we’ll get up, we’ll do Christmas Eve the night before, have a nice dinner.

We’ll wrap our presents together. Our little ritual is on Christmas Eve — we sit down together on the floor back-to-back in front of the tree and wrap each other’s presents in the same room with each other and taunt each other while we wrap them. [Laughs.] Then we unwrap our presents the next day. We usually go out to brunch at a favorite place. … Celebrations are very important to us, as you can see. We just add them — rather than compromising, we’ll just do both. — Mary Gentile, 47, lives with her partner, who is also named Mary, in Boston. She says she breaks out the Christmas music at least a month before the holidays start for most other people.

# 2 Expand Your Horizons

I think I was baptized Catholic; my mom was a Protestant, so I kind of grew up doing the Protestant thing. But I never “got it.” … Then I became a [Buddhist] nun. … I take a secular path in celebrating [the holidays], like being with people I care about, as opposed to being with people because Jesus died, or was born. …

The deeper into anything you get, the more holes you see. … I think Jesus was great, I think Buddha was great, I think Mohammed was great, I think Durga is fuckin’ awesome! — Kim Paulus, 22, lived for a short time in India before settling in New York City. She says her favorite type of gift is “just the random stuff you don’t expect, something that says ‘I care.’”

# 3 Become a Kid Again

When I was a kid, my mom would make potato latkes, which are little potato pancakes, and we’d play dreidel, and the winner would get Hanukkah gelt, which are those little chocolate coins that are covered in gold foil. We’d go over to an aunt’s house, play dreidel and eat latkes smothered in applesauce, and then on each night of Hanukkah, there’d be all the presents in the living room.

Since it’s eight days, there’d be eight presents, and one of them was generally the big present, and then the others were just little presents. But the size of the present didn’t determine the value, so there’d be all these presents and each night you only got to open one. We’d light the Hanukkah candles, say the prayers. So as a little kid, you’d be like, “Is it dark yet? Can we light the candles?” And the women light the candles — it’s traditional that the women light the candles.

In December, wherever you go, it’s all about Christmas. You go to buy gifts and Christmas music is blaring. There’s Santa in the stores, there are Christmas decorations; people are asking you what you’re going to do for Christmas. And it all seems really not applicable to me. Hanukkah is really not a major Jewish holiday, in my mind.

To me, since most of the world is centered around Christmas, which is the birth of Christ, and I don’t believe in Christ as God, then you know it’s sort of like, “Oh, Christmas.” I think Jews tend to know more about Christmas than non-Jews know about Hanukkah. Even if you’re Jewish, you tend to know Christmas songs, as much as we don’t like to admit it. Only until recently people have just sent out Christmas cards and now they’re like, “Happy Holidays,” realizing that “Merry Christmas” doesn’t speak to everyone.

I hold the memories of when I was a kid very fondly and to be able to present that to my kids would be great. You know, to watch them eating potato latkes and playing dreidel would be, I think at this point, my ideal. But if I couldn’t have that, I’d be more than happy to go with a group of friends to Hawaii and sit on the beach, make each other dinner, go surfing and have that be the holiday. — Sophie Goldberg, 34, is a graphic designer for a nonprofit organization in San Francisco. This year, she’ll celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas, as she is spending the holidays with her girlfriend, who is not Jewish.

# 4 Go Back to Your Roots

My whole life, I’ve felt that I was supposed to be Jewish. And I feel like I missed the boat somewhere. My mom was doing genealogy research three years ago and found out that her maiden name is Roseberry, but a while back it used to be Rosenberg. She found out that her family is actually Jewish, and they changed their name. … I was thrilled. I was like, “Oh my gosh, that means I’m Jewish somewhere down the line!” But it’s just so hard, because I missed out on a good 18 years or so of all that Hebrew and prayer ceremonies and everything. I’m trying to learn, but it’s a very complicated religion. [My parents] think I’m not serious about it — that it’s all a big joke. They’re pretty much in denial about it. — Jodie Blackford, 21, grew up in upstate New York and hopes one day to spend the holidays with her girlfriend “being totally open” and “not having my mom try to hook me up with boys.”

# 5 Start Something New

Chautauqua (though we’re not doing it this year) is something we’ve done on and off. I think it’s a really cool thing, and it was particularly a good thing when … we kids and my cousins were all in our 20s and we were just beginning to think about what we were doing in our lives.

So we did this thing that was based on a 19th-century self-education movement —that’s where the word “Chautauqua” comes from. We’d get together with relatives and sometimes other friends, and each person would have 20 minutes to present what they were doing in their lives. Or they could talk about some topic or issue they were particularly interested in if they didn’t want to do something so personal. …

It was neat and you would always realize that — well, you just didn’t know. My sister was trained in medical school and leading this whole different life, and I started graduate school and was learning all this stuff and seeing the world in different ways. And there’s so much going on, you don’t end up with much time to share, and so much of family interaction is very personal stuff. … It was a really cool way of creating a whole different kind of togetherness and appreciation for each other. — Greta Rensenbrink, 37, now lives in Nashville with her partner, Katie Crawford. Her favorite way to spend the holidays is skiing or hiking near her childhood home, where her parents still live, in rural Maine.

# 6 Travel Light This Year

Right now, I’m traveling in Europe. It’s funny to answer holiday questions, because to the British, I am “on holiday.” … At Christmas, my family may come over to Europe to see me. I am hoping not to receive any gifts.

Everything was very purposefully nonreligious in my family. … The point of holidays was to be together. I think that has had a very positive effect on how I think of holidays now.
I am hoping this year there will be no gift exchange at Christmas … I don’t need anything. And I am tired of the consumer takeover. It is sick to me now. Last year, I only got my family and friends “earth-friendly” gifts — recycled paper, an herb garden for my mother’s kitchen, toothbrushes with removable bristles so you don’t have to throw the thing away … stuff like that. I think I only want to give gifts like that or something I’ve made. Anything else doesn’t have much meaning for me any more. The point is to give love, right? Love should stay free. — Jennie Knaggs, 23, from East Lansing, Mich., says Halloween is her all-time favorite holiday.



SOMETHING FROM NOTHING


You don’t need deep pockets to give a gift from the heart.

* Surprise her with a day of mending, and sew on all her lost buttons

* In her honor, pledge a day of letting everyone merge on the freeway

* One word: massage

* Give her a book of her favorite poetry — but make sure it’s returned to the library by the end of the month

* For one solid hour, just listen

* Go for a stroll in the moonlight

* Spend the day together as tourists in your own town

* Do the chore she hates the most (taking out the trash or washing dishes) for the entire month of December

* Put a quarter in a stranger’s meter

* Make a mixed tape as the soundtrack of her life

* Pay the toll of the person behind you

* Give her a photo of the two of you together

* Say, “Thank you”

* Bake cookies

* Tell two people they look great today

* Carry something for a stranger

* Have a candlelit picnic on the living-room floor — move the furniture and throw down a blanket

* Let someone ahead of you in line

* Volunteer for her favorite charity

* Shine her shoes

* Walk the dog for a day, or a week

* Wash her car

* Buy a carry-out meal for a stranger who needs it

* Give her an all-access pass, and see where she goes with it

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