I always hesitate to post current pictures of myself on here but when I saw this photograph taken yesterday I had to laugh that Mr. “Let’s Abolish Santa Claus” and his Jewish daughter were the only ones wearing Santa hats at my mother-in-law’s Christmas celebration. Not that I’ve changed my tune about the web of deceit surrounding Osama bin Santa, but when push comes to shove, I guess I retain some Baby Boomer reverence for those secular icons, Santa, Rudolph, and Frosty. Kendall is holding our gorgeous 7-month-old niece Hallie in the photo and I know I need to tone down my anti-Santa rhetoric by the time she’s ready to embrace that pack of lies.
When Hallie’s dad Scott emailed me that photo this morning I couldn’t stop myself from enlarging it and examining the new Kris Kringle wrinkles around my eyes. I swear they weren’t there last week. My Blog Character accepts the aging process with dignity and grace, but the real me is often shocked by recent photos of myself. Are they now manufacturing trick cameras that add 30 lbs. to only selected quadrants of the photo? Is someone Photoshopping my grandfather’s nose into all shots of myself? Are they using one of those missing children police computers to dramatically age and droop all my features? I really have to get a grip when I look at these photos and make sure I don’t voice my body dysmorphic disorder out loud. The last thing I want to do in front of my pre-pubescent daughter is to model that kind of dysfunction. My mother often kvetched about how fat, hideous, and stupid she was and such talk didn’t do our psyches any good, especially since we could plainly see that she was thin, beautiful, and smart. One of the most poignant memories I have of the painful six months when my mother was dying of cancer was when she told us how much she regretted all of that endless obsession about her weight. Now that she was wasting away into nothing she realized how much she’d give to have her normal body back, cellulite and all.
Since my blog has passed the year mark, I can now look back at what I was writing a year ago—finally I have some kind of record to consult since my memory is for shit these days. I have to believe from my endless 2004 Christmas diatribes that I had a better attitude this season. I may have been ragging on St. Nick but I didn’t go into my usual holiday panic attacks and I enjoyed every minute of our various weekend events. Is that because this is the first time that Hanukkah started on Christmas since the year I was born? Did that timing relieve my childhood trauma at feeling left out at Christmastime? Maybe it’s just the latkes talking. We had some friends and family over on Saturday night and I made twenty pounds of potato latkes (oy!) along with a brisket, chopped liver, challah, and other Jewish delicacies that I placed on one half of the table. On the other half, I had a honeybaked ham, macaroni and cheese, and more taste treats of the goyim. As I carried the ham past the portraits of my great-grandparents hanging in our dining room, I expected the platter to fly up in the air and explode like the golden calf scene in “The Ten Commandments.” Most of our Christian guests made a beeline for the brisket and latkes. I guess we always want what we don’t have. The latkes were delicious but I was a little scared that I started with a brand new quart of canola oil and when I was finished the bottle was empty. Where’d it go? Oh yeah, my pores, stomach, and kitchen walls.
I just saw the third Chabad station wagon drive by with a giant menorah on the roof showing that it’s the second night of Hanukkah. Gotta love those Lubavitchers. They’re roaming the streets passing out free menorahs and candles today to anyone in Los Angeles who looks remotely Jewish. Check out their cool Virtual Chanukah site. I read an article in a Jewish newspaper this weekend about the horrors of combining Christmas and Hanukkah, saying it did a disservice to both holidays. I want to make it clear to my orthodox relatives that our party on Saturday night was NOT a “Chrismukkah” event. There was no Hanukkah Bush or mention of Hanukkah Harry, that stuff sticks in my craw. Our dinner was a double celebration, not a combined one (as if that rationalization would somehow make it acceptable to orthodox Jews that we were eating ham in our home). As Kendall and I continue to think about having a baby, she was struck this weekend with the pain of what we’d be “taking away” from our unborn child by denying him or her the experience of running downstairs to the tree on Christmas morning. As far as I’m concerned, that’s why God invented Gentile grandmas. Come on, Kendall, the ink is barely dry on your conversion papers, we can’t start piling on the senseless slaughter of pine trees to our ham-serving crimes.
As a final Andy Hardy post-mortem, thanks to everyone who commented on my title change. As I suspected, some people were a bit baffled or underwhelmed. Ironically, the most vehement opponent was my always supportive dad who kept asking over and over, “Jew eat yet? As in J-E-W?” I explained the “Annie Hall” reference but he still didn’t get it. “What’s wrong with ‘Danny Miller’s Blog’?” he asked. “Um, everything?” I replied. My father is convinced that I am going to alienate all Jews with the title and that non-Jews will think I’m a raving anti-Semite.
A few hours after deleting Andy Hardy from my site I turned on Turner Classic Movies and for the first time in over a year, the Hardy family stared out at me accusingly from the screen. I could barely bring myself to look at them, feeling like I had betrayed this family which was in a tizzy over who Andy would take to the Christmas dance—Lana Turner, Ann Rutherford, or Judy Garland. I enjoyed spending a few Christmas moments with them but it ended up feeling as fake as a Hanukkah bush. I suddenly realized that Andy Hardy’s home town of Carvel had never seen a single Jew or person of color. Was Carvel the focal point for a vast network of White Supremacists? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Andy’s town was Judenfrei several years before Hitler succeeded in Europe. The Hardy series was the darling of MGM boss Louis B. Mayer, himself a Jewish immigrant, yet he avoided any mention of Jewish topics in his films. The industry-approved censorship board at the time was headed by Joseph Breen who once referred to a Warner Brothers executive as “a kike Jew of the very lowest type who seems to think of nothing but money making and sexual indulgence.” Breen called Jews “the scum of the scum of the earth.” Charming, huh? Do you see why I had to let the Hardys go? Or am I as fickle as the Jewish children in the Kindertransport program who after the war walked away from the families who saved them so they could return to the ragtag group of Jewish survivors?
As an outsider, I must say you look quite handsome - except for the idiotic hat - not at all what I expected after your past "dysmorphic" rants... enjoy it while you've got it. everything is relative.
Posted by: Melinama | December 27, 2005 at 03:45 AM
You sound as critical of yourself as I do - you look great! I particularly enjoyed the portion of the Chanukah description, being the sole maker of latkes in my house, I certainly understood the liberal use of oil here. And brisket....aaah..is there anything better? Happy Chanukah!
Posted by: Wendy | December 27, 2005 at 06:38 AM
A terrific picture! You all look so happy and festive!
Posted by: Tamar | December 27, 2005 at 07:10 AM
Danny, you look great...Santa hat and all! Beautiful family. You're party sounds like it was wonderful. By the way...as insomnia and I seem to be the best of friends lately...I turned on my t.v. in the middle of the night and the first thing to pop up was Sally Field in A Woman of Independent Means!
Posted by: Randi | December 27, 2005 at 10:07 AM
nice to put a face with the blog.
Posted by: justin kreutzmann | December 27, 2005 at 05:07 PM
Danny! I love the new name of the blog (for some reason it reminds of me the run-together word/question of our north country neighbors, "Didjegitcherdeeryet?".) I think it's funny.
And I noticed you are much less vitriolic this year. Good for you! Sure, as a lapsed Catholic (love those bells and smells), I celebrate Christmas, but I'm a gardener (not a Gardnerian) -- for me the holiday is the Solstice. The days are getting longer, and the seed catalogues are arriving daily.
Happy Hanukkah to you, Kendall, and Leah. (And you look fine!)
Posted by: Lisa | December 28, 2005 at 12:47 PM
Just read this one DAnny and it sounds like you had a great Celebration on Saturday night...So wish I could have been there...LATKE'S..I WANT LATKE'S!!! (lol)..
Hope you bring in 2006 with as much Joie as you did with Hanukah and Christmas!!!
Posted by: OldOldOldLady Of The Hills | December 28, 2005 at 06:21 PM
You look great, Danny. And I think I know fat when I see it.
Posted by: nappy40 | December 29, 2005 at 11:34 AM