100 Years

Last October, I wrote about my mother-in-law, Linda Gerstenblatt, who died of cancer at the age of 63.  When people spoke to me about that article, they offered their condolences and shared in my frustration with the over-pinking and commercialization of breast cancer.   My 99-year-old grandmother, however, who reads all of my writing, responded quite differently to that particular piece.  “If you ever want to write something nice like that about me for the newspaper, I wouldn’t stop you,” she said, looking across her dining room table at me with a sly smile. 

           

I’d like to introduce you to Rose Katz, who I call Nanny. 

Many of you already know her, since she worked as a bookkeeper in Scarsdale village for almost 30 years and because she likes to talk to just about everyone.  Walking around town with my grandmother is like taking a stroll with a cute puppy or a new baby.  Everyone stops to chat with you because of the marvelous companion on your arm.

me and Nanny

Nanny is a unique person, who is as tall on opinions as she is short on height.  She has more viewpoints on a variety of topics than someone half her age.  She’ll tell you if you look good, if you’ve put on weight, and if that lady over there has put on weight.  She likes to compare herself to the second-oldest woman in the room – who is 80, most likely – and tell you that the octogenarian looks much older than she does.  She might mention that a particular child at a birthday party is cute, but the mother?  Feh.

She has a great collection of sayings, my grandmother.  One that I particularly like has to do with women who dress provocatively (or people who call attention to themselves in any way) and then get upset when people notice or react.  “If you don’t want to be saluted, pull in your American flag,” she’ll dismiss.

“A committee put together that person’s face…” she’ll begin, shaking her head sadly.  “And the committee didn’t agree on nothin’!”  Ba-doom, tsz.

What?  She asked me to write about her in the newspaper, did she not?

At the time of this request, Nanny and I were sitting in her apartment in White Plains – where she still lives independently -- drinking coffee that I had brought from Dunkin’ Donuts.  I bring my own coffee when I visit because I don’t trust her Parmalat milk.

“The milk is good for weeks!” Nanny told me once.  “Look at the date stamp.”

“That’s only before it’s opened,” I said, unable to explain why this was the case, but just knowing it to be so.  “After you get air into the container, it’s good for a week just like everyone else’s milk.”

“Well, not mine,” she decided. 

And so I decided to stay away from that milk, even though it seemed to be doing no harm to Nanny.  (Perhaps the active cultures are acting as some sort of life preservative?  Like whatever secrets they uncovered in the movie Cocoon?)

            

The thing is, of course, that we cannot know what secrets keep one person alive and healthy for a full century while others struggle and face a much shorter existence.  In just the past few months, I have seen examples of lives cut way too short.  I have seen families watch a loved one’s health decline over time and I have seen others surprised by the suddenness of death.  As I’m sure you know from whatever your own life has dealt you, we don’t always take the opportunity to speak our hearts while our loved ones are alive and well.  (Even if we end up publicly roasting them a little bit in good fun.) 

            

Sometimes, when my kids are running late in the mornings and the lunches I’ve packed aren’t nutritious and it takes Andrew 6 minutes to tie his sneakers (why? Why?!) and Zoe wants to wear head-to-toe sparkles and hates her new leggings after ripping off the tags (why?  Why?!) and Brett is rolling his eyes at something one of us said or did or didn’t do and THE SCHOOL BUS IS COMING, PEOPLE! it’s hard to stop and smell the roses and appreciate all that’s wonderful.  Once my family is out the door, I just want to cheer my state of sublime aloneness.

            

And then I call my grandmother to vent or get sympathy, and she’s calm, and relaxed, and she can’t hear that well, but still, she offers an ear.  “Whatsamattah, sweetheart?” she asks, probably while toasting a nice Kaiser roll and putting some (definitely expired) milk into her morning coffee.  “You’re such a sweet and precious Mommy,” she tells me.  This comment, which she says often, makes me feel both validated in my choice to stay home with my kids and guilty about sometimes wanting to run away from home. 

Then she’ll launch into a story.

           

“Did I ever tell you about what Pop-Pop and I did when you were born?”

            

Only, like, ten thousand times. “I’m not sure,” I’ll say.  “ Maybe you should tell me again.”

There are few people that I love more than my grandmother, who will turn 100 on November 1^st, and there’s certainly no one older in our family or maybe even yours.  She has not asked for a party to commemorate the occasion so much as what she calls “a celebration of a life.” 

“I don’t want a big funeral,” she has said more than once, even though she’s probably going to get one and there won’t be anything she can do to stop it.  But, I know what she means: why put all that money and planning towards having the Jersey cousins come all the way over the bridge when it’ll be too late for her to hear them complain about the traffic? 

Instead, although Nanny hasn’t used these words, I believe she wants a living funeral, a gathering of people around her -- the same (kvetchy) group that would attend her eventual postmortem funeral, mind you, Jersey cousins and Long Island cousins and maybe even a few strays that we haven’t spoken to since the big blow-up at Roey’s funeral in 1990 – that would come and talk about her to her.  Knowing my grandmother, the main event at this celebration would be her standing at a podium talking about herself to us.  Nanny is a very enthusiastic storyteller. 

She would tell you that I get all my creative writing talents from her.

She would also tell you that she’s singlehandedly responsible for the Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur break enjoyed by all public schoolchildren in the state of New York.  (Long story short: she was the PTA president in Park Slope, Brooklyn in the 1950’s and spoke to someone of influence and from there it gets a bit nebulous.)

And so that is why I have officially kicked off this year’s “celebration of a life” by writing about my Nanny and sharing my love for her in the newspaper, while she’s here to see me do it. 

Because - in this unique case, at least - I can.

To borrow a phrase of my grandmother’s, may we all be so lucky.

Lessons from Downton Abbey: A Jewish American Princess studies the Dowager Countess

I admire the British for so many reasons. They have a rich history of beheading enemies of the monarchy without ever compromising afternoon tea. They colonized half the globe and yet managed to ensure that no other colony’s accent would sound exactly like theirs. In particular, I idolize the Brits for their fictional characters. If shipwrecked on a deserted island and in need of reading materials to last a lifetime, I’d much rather have aristocratic and feisty Emma Woodhouse and her charming Mr. Knightly with me than Puritanical Hester Prynne and her pastor, Arthur (yawn) Dimmsdale. Give me Heathcliff and Catherine! Bring me my Bridget Jones! Oh, heck, just give me any book that was later turned into a movie starring Hugh Grant and/or Colin Firth! And, now, thanks to Downton Abbey, make sure that I always have the BBC on my telly. (Yes, even on that deserted island.)

Turns out, there’s a lot a Jewish girl from New York can learn from the fictional, Victorian-Era Crawleys and their estate in North Yorkshire. In honor of the upcoming finale of Downton Abbey’s second season, I’d like to share some of these delicious bits of knowledge.

1. Marry your cousin.
Clock ticking? Desperate for a mate? Tired of being set up by your mom’s gay hairdresser? Sick of having half of your grandmother’s mahjong group insist they have the perfect guy for a “mature” woman like yourself? Dear Jewess, don’t fret. The next time your dad worries about who will take over his condo in Boca once he passes on, ensure him that you’ve got his back. Promptly fall in love with your cousin and gain an immediate heir to the estate. Now, don’t go screwing things up by, let’s say, screwing a Turk who then dies in your bed or by pretending you don’t love your cousin when you really, really do. Don’t let the cousin go off to war on Wall Street without telling him how you feel. Worry later about the genetic complications this might prompt, including blood-clotting disorders; for now, stay focused on Boca.

2. Just shut up already.
When people ask me how I am doing, I actually tell them. Sometimes, I go on for several minutes, blabbing and spewing and confiding, analyzing and hypothesizing and then circling back to the original point with some sort of diarrhea of the mouth. What can I say? This is nearly unavoidable when the double helix of your DNA looks like Fran Drescher and Woody Allen snake dancing. An English Lady would never behave like that. She would hold her tongue and smile in mixed company, only divulging her true feelings to her maid. Even if she were bleeding internally during cocktails, I like to think she’d keep concerns about her spleen to herself. Perhaps if I wore a corset, I’d feel less like talking, and therefore, become all the more charming. I’d certainly look better. It’s worth a shot.

3. Use your father’s influence for your own gain.
Oh, wait. We Jewish American Princesses have already got this one down. Check it off the list!

Interestingly, gossip about season 3 of Downton Abbey has some suspecting that Cora Crawley, wife of the Earl of Grantham and daughter of American dry goods multimillionaire Isidore Levinson is actually…gasp…Jewish. With a name like Levinson, it’s certainly possible. And it would help to explain the overlapping behaviors between Jewesses and Countesses, at least in this instance.

(Read the full piece on Tablet here.)

4. When and if that doesn’t work, sneak around behind Papa’s back.
This is really fun. There is no telling what can be done once dear old Papa is out of the loop. This is how most of my shopping at Bergdorf Goodman was done when I was in high school. Afterwards, I would hide the packages so my dad couldn’t document the trouble my mom and I got into with his Amex. But now I see that this was nothing. When done with the English flair of a Crawley, you can achieve true greatness behind your father’s back. You can fall for your politically-minded chauffer and still have time to dress wounds back at the makeshift convalescent hospital set up in your family’s dining room. You can, with help from your mother and her maid, remove the dead Turk from your bedroom and place him back in his own bedchamber. You can then work a romantic deal with a well-known publisher, exchanging your heart for the safety of your public reputation. Shhh. As long as Papa doesn’t know, then you are not a whore, or a slut, or in fear of being disinherited, disowned, or dishonored. There shall be no dissing whatsoever without Daddy’s knowledge. (Easier by far just to go on a shopping spree, if you ask me.)

5. In a tiered society, it’s best to be at the tippy top or the briny bottom.Honestly, the servants and the Dowager Countess seem to have the most fun in and around Downton. There is much to scheme about when you spend all day mending fancy people’s socks and cleaning their underclothes, which explains why O’Brien and Thomas are so delightfully awful. Same with Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess, the most influential of the upstairs bunch. Once she properly positions an off-kilter, feathered and flowered hat atop her curls, she’s got nothing to do all day but gossip and connive and dream up the next sharp barb. And that’s the way life should be as the top 1%. It’s not as much fun being stuck somewhere in the middle, like me, and like dear Bates. He’s got some money, but he’s also got a limp and had a wife who was a bitch. No one wants to be him. And then there’s Isobel Crawley, who has so little power next to Lady Grantham that she had to retreat to France for a while. She’s no fun at all.

When all is said and done, in my next life, I’d like to come back as a British Dutchess or Countess or Heiress. Any ess will do. I’d like to have someone dress me for dinner and I’d want to learn how to ride a horse in the countryside without having to worry about my hay fever.

Oh, and one last thing. I’d like to be able to celebrate Christmas, even if it is fictional and during wartime. Lucky for me, that’s exactly what the Crawleys will be doing this Sunday, February 19th. Now, raise your heirloom quality, cut-glass crystal goblet and follow my lead. Cheers, everyone.

Wandering Jews

Setting: The Ritz-Carlton hotel, San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 2005. My husband, Brett, and I were lying by the pool, enjoying the early evening breezes and thinking about what to have for dinner.

“Do you hear that?” Brett asked, pointing towards a terraced area to our right. A party was beginning on a second floor balcony tucked around a corner and just out of our sight line. We could make out some laughter mixed with the sound of silverware clinking on china. Then a cacophony of music floated across the courtyard and down towards the beach.

“It’s probably the same group that we heard last night,” I shrugged. “A big wedding or something.”

A mournful -- yet surprisingly upbeat -- whine of violin and clarinet in a minor key wafted along the shore.

It reminded us of somewhere we were not.

“Isn’t tonight the second night of Passover?” Brett asked.

It was, come to think of it.

And so, we sneaked over to take a look. Eavesdropping through the glass windows and into the taffeta-and-gilded ballroom off the pool area, we saw hundreds of people milling about, preparing to sit for dinner at long banquet tables. With the Klezmer band as our witness, we confirmed what we already felt in our hearts: this was one heck of a Passover seder. And we were missing it.

It turns out that, centuries after making it out of Egypt, crossing the Red Sea on dry land, living in the desert for 40 years, and entering the Holy Land of Israel, Jews have continued to wander for Passover, just for the fun of it.

Who knew?!

Apparently, this is not news to a good deal of modern orthodox Jews. Just ask the coordinators at Totally Jewish Tours (totallyjewishtours.com), your one stop, full-service, Glatt Kosher guide to traveling the globe for Passover.

This year, you can choose your preferred Pesach locale from several resorts in Florida (obviously, duh), like Boca or Palm Beach. Do you like to golf? Then maybe the Arizona Biltmore is for you, with its two 18-hole golf courses and an 18-hole putting course. As a bonus, this hotel boasts an authentic desert surround, in case you want to, you know, reenact part of the story of the Exodus or whatever. Feeling more adventurous in your religiousness? Then I’d go for Split, Croatia. And, if luxury is what your Passover is all about, then, by all means, do it in Capri, Italy. Stay at the Tiberio Palace, where the entire hotel will be ordained kosher for Passover. The website boasts, “Noted for its extraordinary natural beauty, splendid panoramic views, Blue Grotto, and warm climate, it is without doubt one of the most sought after destinations among jet-setters,” and – dare I add – gefilte fishermen.

If you happen to be a New Yorker who wants to stay local for the holiday but are tired of the same-old, same-old at your Aunt Ethel’s in Brooklyn, then I say head out for Mexicana.

Passover a la Mexicana.

You heard that right, my Hebraic compadres. Rosa Mexicano is hosting its 9th annual Passover a la Mexicana, offering Pesachdik-ish, Sephardic-inspired additions to the regular menu as a part of their “Flavors of Mexico” program for the week of April 18th.

Enjoy crisp corn tortillas filled with corned beef and cabbage, or the higadito de pollo para tacos, which, loosely translated, means chopped chicken livers. Perhaps you are more of a fan of lengua de res a la Veracruzana, a spin on traditional beef tongue. And what seder table would be complete without grandma’s caldo de pollo con bolitas? (Figure it out yourself, chicken soup lovers.)

Six years have gone by since that fateful night in San Juan. Six years of predictable Passovers at home, hiding the afikomen for our children, opening the door for Elijah, and letting my dad lead us out of Egypt quickly so as not to dry out the apricot chicken awaiting us in the oven.

But not this year. Oh no. This year, what my Passover needs is lots of sun and surf. My Passover needs a hot stone massage and several Pina Coladas mixed in with the occasional macaroon.

It just so happens that one of these Glatt Kosher tour groups is running a week-long Passover Party at a hotel I’d love to visit. Call it beshert. Call it stalking. Call it what you will. Sure, the tour group is completely sold out of spaces in their program, and sure, there’s no way my family and I would even qualify to be a part of such a group since we’d be snacking on bagels, pretzels and rice cakes between meals, arriving at the table with suspicious crumbs in the corners of our mouths. But I’ve seen their website, and now I’m kind of hungering for their famous all you can eat BBQ buffet and lavish tea room. Not to mention the renowned day camp and midnight dessert extravaganza.

Now all I need to do is convince Brett, overpay for airfare, get waxed, and totally bail on my extended family!

I may not be orthodox, but that doesn’t mean I won’t know a rockin’ seder when I crash it.

To paraphrase the Haggadah: Next year, in Israel. This year, perhaps, in Miami.

Battle Hymn of the Mouse Mother

A lot of people wonder how it is that Jewish parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many doctors and lawyers, so many rabbis and Hollywood producers, one Itzhak Perlman and the occasional Madoff. They want to know what it’s like inside the suburban minivan of a Mouse mother’s world, to see whether they, too, could drive a perfectly normal child into years of psychotherapy.

Well, I am here to say that they can, because I am doing it.

People see me out with my daughter in public and comment at how well behaved I am, even as she is brow-beating me and publicly humiliating me. So many people wonder why, when my children call me stupid, I am able to remain calm and not smack them upside the head. They say, Mouse mother, how can I emit calm like you, even while raising independently-spirited, self-directed, emotionally strong children? How is it that your children are bright even though you got a D in 8th grade Latin and attended a college known more for its fraternity system than for academic rigor? Mouse mother, please, they beg, tell us your secrets. And so, after generations of protected silence, I am here to squeal the truth.

With a little practice, you, too, can be a Mouse mother like me.

Not sure why you’d want to, but that’s for another memoir with a high six-figure advance entirely.

Anyway! Back to my battle hymn, which is really much more of a whine.

Anyone can be a Mouse mother; you need not be Jewish to lack Tiger skills. So, please understand that for legal purposes, I’m using the term “Jewish mother” loosely. So loosely, in fact, that when I say “Jewish Mother,” I mean absolutely anyone except for Amy Chua.

Here are the things that I, as a liberal Jewish mother have allowed my children to do and/or done for them:

• Skip 2 months of Hebrew school in order to perform in a local performance of The Nutcracker
• Bribe them to play piano, practice the violin, make their beds, brush their teeth, and to be nice to me and others – oh, what
the heck, let’s just say “bribe them constantly” and leave it at that
• Talk them out of playing any and all contact sports for fear of them breaking their noses
• Talk them out of playing any sports that involve running because of the funny way they run
• Allow them to watch no less than 2 hours of television a day and to not let them stop until they had both committed to
memory a complete episode of iCarly
• Suck their thumb until the age of 7 and/or carry around a dirty, beloved shmatte like Linus from The Peanuts
• Write notes to a teacher excusing their inability to do homework because American Idol was on
• Choose all their own extracurricular activities, including fencing, Lego robotics, and a class in which my 5-year-old daughter was taught how to sing karaoke like a drunken idiot at a bar.

Now I know some of these seem unconventional, but if your goal is to have a human child like mine, as opposed to an automaton, for example, then you’d do well by following my example of mediocrity and a little dose of who-gives-a-hoot.
To prove that this type of parenting can achieve the desired results, I would now like to share a few success stories.

A Tiger mother might spend two complete chapters of her memoir explaining how to get one’s children to perform at Carnegie Hall, or at the very least, how to obtain an audition to the Pre-College program at Julliard. But a Jewish mother can boil the answer to that down for you in a few simple words: by kicking and screaming. As a Mouse mother, I prefer to regale you with impressive stories of just the opposite, and so I shall call this instructional section of my writing “How To Ensure That Your Child Never Achieves Much of Anything in The Arts.”

I recently took my daughter, Zoe, for a trial class at a ballet studio where some of her friends were enrolled. After the class, we discussed what she thought about it and tried to decide together whether or not she would be signing up. Being a Mouse mother, I didn’t really care either way. The signature move of the Mouse mother is the shrug, which I did repeatedly as we spoke. I wrote down our conversation verbatim because I thought it was so emblematic of our mother-child dynamic.

Me: So, what did you think of this ballet class?
Zoe: I didn’t see any machines there.
Me: Huh?
Zoe: You remember that place where Andrew took a class once? They had candy and drink machines.
Me: Oh.
Zoe: And ice cream. We used to eat ice cream before his class.
Me: You mean, that hip-hop class on Central Avenue?
Zoe: Yes! And they had stuffed animals to buy and also dance clothes. And a TV to watch.
Me: Uh-huh.
Zoe: That’s the kind of dance class I want to take.

It’s clear to any Jewish mother out there that this girl understands her culture. Zoe knows that professional ballet is just not in her future, so why even try? How smart of her to know that, come puberty, her Polish genes will betray her, ensuring a body so low to the ground that it’s better constructed for potato farming than arabesquing. The closest she will ever come to doing a split is with her Barbie doll’s legs. And that’s so totally cool with her, as long as she can buy stuff and enjoy snacks.

It was one of the proudest moments of my life.

My firstborn, Andrew, proved to be another story entirely. He actually seemed to have some drive beyond the candy-and-shopping aspects of the theater. In fact, he tried out for and was given the coveted role of Fritz in last winter’s production of The Nutcracker at SUNY Purchase. Now, a Tiger mother would have spent weeks, days, and hours preparing her child for such an audition and would then feign modesty and humility but secretly take credit for the child’s success when he did well. But not me. I merely got Andrew a nice haircut and told him to smile a lot in front of the choreographers. Like the Mouse mother I am, I believe a nice Jewish boy with dimples can get ahead in this world merely by knowing his left from his right and by following his own interests.

Seeing that her child has a passion and talent for something of worth, a Tiger mother would certainly push and squeeze and prod and threaten to the point that a) the child got really freaking amazing at the skill and b) the child really hated both the activity and the Tiger mother. Where a Tiger mother values perfection, a Mouse mother values diversification above all else. Why stick to just one thing and become the best at it when you can try so many fun activities and be mediocre at all of them? Which is why, once Nutcracker season had passed, I did not take Andrew to The New York City Ballet. Instead, I took him straight to rec basketball.

Call me naïve, but so far, this renegade technique really seems to be working. And by “working,” I mean its produced children who, at the ages of 8 and 5, are pretty happy doing their job…of being kids.

A Llama for Hanukah

A catalogue recently arrived in my mail. This is no great news, since I get about two or three a day, more when companies up the ante and start getting ready for the holiday season. In one week alone in November I received glossy magazines selling goods for Pottery Barn Pre Holiday, Pottery Barn Early Holiday, Pottery Barn Pre-Teen Post- Football Season, Pottery Barn Erev Hanukah, Pottery Barn Hates Your Crazy Family Too, and Pottery Barn Babies Turn 40.

So unnecessary. We all know that once you get past the first four pages the whole thing is the same as the Pottery Barn Secretary’s Day catalogue anyway.

But this catalogue was different: it wasn’t from Pottery Barn, and it wasn’t selling stuff.

No turkey platters. Just turkeys.

No pashmina throws. Just Llamas.

No egg nog. Just some drunk chickens.

Well, actually, that’s not fair. From the pictures, it was hard to tell whether or not the chickens were drunk. I’d hate to write slander, so let’s just say they were acting really “festive.”

Point is, this catalogue, called the World Vision Gift Catalogue: Meaningful Gifts that Change the World, is all about providing people across the globe with the means to feed, clothe, educate, and generally provide for themselves, their families and their communities (hence the animals mentioned above). In addition to livestock, this catalogue contains pages of “inexpensive gifts that bring joy to children” including healthcare, housing, and access to clean water.

I can gift people their basic human rights. And do it in my grandmother’s honor!

In terms of a catalogue with holiday spirit, I think it’s fair to say it beats the pants off PB, stocking-and-garland-trimmed cover and all. I pushed all the other catalogues off the counter. I couldn’t wait to dig in to this one.

Within minutes, I was scribbling individual’s names on post-its and slapping them onto different pages. What to get for a teacher your child loves? How about item #0253 for $30, which will fill an American child’s backpack all year long with needed school supplies? For that post-feminist, Birkenstock wearing sister-in-law of yours? I’d go with the small business loan for one woman at a cost of $100. And the brother whose claim to fame in high school was that he kicked butt as his team’s goalie? Soccer balls for schools throughout Latin America.

I cannot remember when shopping felt so good. And luckily, shipping costs seem not to be an issue, so feel free to go hog wild. Get your boss two oxen and a plow. Like to buy in bulk? You can purchase an entire menagerie -- 28 farm animals in one order -- saving ten families from hunger this year, and even more in the years to come. (It’s a gift that truly keeps on giving. Think reproduction.)

My friends Jodi and Evan are going through a rough patch, with the double-whammy of a bad market for Evan’s business and a house that flooded while they were at Disneyworld over Thanksgiving. “We’re being kicked in the assets!” Jodi declared via cell phone, holed up indefinitely at a local hotel. “You cannot imagine our room service bill. Jason, stop jumping on the bed!”
I’m so sending them a llama for Hanukah.

And a case of scotch.

At my book group meeting the other night, this topic of holiday giving came up. Well, first we talked about the book (22 minutes – a record). Then we moved on to a discussion about gifting service people and babysitters, which turned into a series of other unrelated topics, which finally circled back to the realization that we had not selected a book for next month (1 hour and 37 minutes).

The tipping and gifting conversation was interesting. First, because I found out just how cheap I am. And secondly, because we questioned whether anyone would be reducing the number of and/or dollar amount of gifts this year, in light of the world’s recent financial crumbling.

One woman said that she would not be giving her babysitter a raise, so instead she cut back the woman’s hours slightly, giving her the gift of more time off. Another person mentioned that she traditionally participates not only in the class gift for a teacher, but also goes out of her way to give a little something extra, like a Starbucks gift card or a mug. (We quickly talked her out of that habit and into a Scarsdale High School PTA Scholarship Fund donation made in the teacher’s name.) Someone else mentioned that she always generously tips her top-secret eyebrow groomer, financial crisis or no.

In terms of donations to charity, many companies usually participate in holiday giving. But, this year, those same companies have spend the last few months laying people off, cutting salaries and/or withholding bonuses, hoping to stay alive. It made me wonder what happens to charitable contributions during a recession.

Last year, 1 in 8 Americans went hungry. Imagine what the figures are now. I guess my real question is this: do we give less this year because we have less this year? Or do we give more because the need is greater? Is the amount of giving in direct proportion to how much you have or in relation to how much others require?

Some give a fixed amount yearly, such as 5% of one’s household or corporate earnings. Others give when the mood strikes them throughout the year, choosing to support their child’s preschool or an organization that holds special meaning. For others, it’s less about proportionality and more about finding ways to show you care.

>I don’t have all (or even some) of the answers, but I know someone who has at least one good one.

My friend Kate was fed up. She had purchased from Pottery Barn a beautiful Advent calendar for her daughters, to help count down the days until Christmas. Kate then went out and bought a bunch of little goodies to put inside each window.

“And you know what happened?” Kate asked me over lunch. “The girls would run downstairs each morning, pushing each other out of the way to get to the stuff first. Then, once they saw their present, they would promptly complain about it! Mom, I want what Sydney has! And, Hello Kitty? I don’t even like Hello Kitty anymore!”

She pointed her fork at me, stabbing the air with flying lettuce. “Dave and I were just done with the whole thing. I told him we had to put the Advent calendar away.”

“But I like it.” Dave began, trying to come up with a solution. “Where’d you get it, anyway?”

They were on the verge of taking the new PB purchase to the attic when they realized that they could keep both their calendar and their daughters with some creative thinking. “The idea was, let’s just have them give something every day instead of get something.”

And so, the girls began sending holiday cards to American soldiers, delivering poinsettias to a nursing home, and throwing pennies into the fountains at the Simon mall (which are donated to the Simon Youth fund). They selected gifts for other children taken from their own collection of stuffed animals, “which didn’t go all that smoothly at first,” Kate admitted, rolling her eyes. “But eventually Syd came around. ‘Giving’ is a tough concept when you’re four.”

For the record, I believe she selected for donation a turkey, a llama, and a chicken. Plus a couple of one-legged Barbies.
Isn’t that a nice story?

So, from Pottery Barn to me to you, have a Merry and a Happy.

By the way, did you know that Pottery Barn is a proud supporter of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital?

You can read all about it in today’s catalogue.

(It’s right there, in the pile with this very newspaper. See it? By the toaster. There you go.)