My one Xmas tradition

I know that I can be a bit "bah-humbuggy" during the month of December.  I get annoyed with the bombardment of Christmas into every day life.  I get frustrated with the music, the over-decoration, the rush to purchase large gifts and the stress of travel.  I'm also SERIOUSLY annoyed when people wish me a merry Christmas, as though it is assumed that I am Christian (one of my favorite things is to then wish them Happy Hannukkah and watch them get confused).  

I've had two Decembers that didn't frustrate me me to tears:  December 1997 and December 2000.  These two are significant because they are two holiday seasons where I wasn't in the US.  In 1997, my family took a trip to Israel and it was the first time I realized that the entire world didn't hum Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer.  There were Hannukkah celebrations in our hotel lobby (but just the candle-lighting, no crappy decorations) and on Christmas day, instead of going to a movie and being frustrated by all the store closings, I went scuba diving in the Red Sea (amazing, seriously).  December 2000 I was traveling through Europe and had the pleasure of celebrating the holiday with a good friend in Luxembourg.  We still had an issue with store and restaurant closings (we ate at Chi Chis) but we went to a lovely church service and spent the day taking in Luxembourg City.  So last minute sales, no chinese food, no 24-hour Christmas Story.  It was heaven.

Since then I have strived to create my own Christmas traditions, above and beyond the stereotypical "chinese food and a movie" that most of America thinks that is all Jews can do on December 25.  I've started by going to New York each Christmas.  And, though I never do it on Christmas, my favorite holiday tradition is to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and see the Creche.  This is an amazing work of art.  It's a 360 degree village of characters, including Mary, Jesus and Joseph (plus the Wise Men), at the base of a beautiful tree filled with floating angels.  There is fake water in a stream, people having conversations not related to the nativity, and gives the sense of the common setting of the nativity while still celebrating the birth of Jesus.  Set in front of a choir panel from Spain, with light classical holiday music being played in the background, I get a sense that, if I thought Jesus was the Savior, this is EXACTLY how I would want to celebrate it.  Simple, beautiful, classic.  I wish every December could be described that way.

Are we there yet?

So the Big Cornfield is a vast open space, where it seems to take at least two hours to get anywhere.  As a kid, going to the lake was easily a four hour trip.  Camp was a nine hour trip.  The nearest big city?  At least three and a half ('cause I refuse to count Omaha as a big city).  So it perplexes most people I know from the Cornfield when I tell them that I can hop on a bus in DC and be in downtown NYC in 4.5 hours.  They do the math and realize that in 4.5 hours, I will have traveled through four states and a District (5 states if you take the cheap route through Philly), all of which can be done while surfing the web (thanks Boltbus) or talking on one battery life of my cell.  You know where 4.5 hours gets me in the Cornfield?  Nebraska.  If your pedal is to the metal and you don't get a speeding ticket in Buchanan County, Iowa, it'll get to you Madison.  But by in large, 4.5 hours in the Cornfield gets you from one Cornfield to, maybe, one Soybean Field.

I'm happy I live in a part of the world where 4.5 hours gets me to so many amazing cities with so much incredible stuff to do.  And the transportation system out East is such that you can almost always find a way to get somewhere you need to go at just about any point in the day.   But as I sat on the bus, somewhere in the middle of New Jersey (it all looks the same from the bus), I couldn't help but realize that while 4.5 hours in the Big Cornfield is ACTUALLY 4.5 hours in a big cornfield, it's a beautiful cornfield that most don't stop and appreciate.  I personally find nothing serene about the drive from DC to NYC.  It is nothing but time spent stressed out (which is why I take the bus).  But that same time period, driving through the Cornfield, I find it mellow, calming, and even a little zen.  So while I'm happy that 4.5 hours takes me from one great city to another, I sort of wish I got the cornfield in between.