December: an eternal battle over decorations

THERE’S CONFLICT BREWING IN HADLEY FREEMAN’S HOUSE THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

- HADLEY FREEMAN

December: a time of simple joys and contented cosiness. Or, if you live in my kind of household, an eternal battle over the decorations. I am Jewish. My partner is not. ‘How lovely,’ you are no doubt thinking. ‘Your children will grow up with two cultures. What a delightfully modern set-up.’ And most of the time it is. Every spring, I look after the Passover duties and he sets up the Easter egg hunt, and every autumn I explain again to the children what Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are, and he tries to stop making bored faces. So multicultural! But December is complicated.