Gutted pumpkins, rabbit stew and the spirit of the holidays

I suppose, one of these days, I ought to put up a Christmas tree.

Yeah, I know, the rest of the world went into full fa-la-la mode well before the first leaves had fallen, and I am, doubtless, among the last to contemplate dragging a decapitated evergreen into the living room to celebrate the season and support the consumer economy.

Now I’ll disavow any kinship with Scrooge or Grinch, it’s just that, as far as I’m concerned, my house is just fine as it is. For 11 months I live comfortably without pine boughs or twinkly lights festooning my living space and, truth be told, I really don’t feel the need for December to be any different.

Write it off to a long standing seasonal decorative disaffective disorder – by no means limited to the Yuletide. I failed to gut a single pumpkin in October; appear heartless throughout February; serve rabbit stew for Easter brunch and call the cops on the guy shooting verboten fireworks on the Fourth. I don’t even wear green on March 17.

Frankly, holiday decorating leaves me cold. I fear that it —like my indifference to professional football and deep aversion to being called “Jerry” – is rooted deep in the indignities of childhood.

It was clear the dread season was upon me when we returned from our Thanksgiving holiday and the turkey feathers and Pilgrim hats were gone from Mrs. Caffrey’s classroom bulletin boards. I knew it for what it was -- the first manifestation of the three-week frenzy of felt, glue and glitter that was about to begin.

In those days, well before the ramifications of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Engel v. Vitale had expanded and hardened into the banishment of all things carrying so much as a whiff of sectarian spirituality from public education, our classroom constituted little short of a taxpayer financed observation of Advent.  As December progressed, the fact that less and less class time and attention was devoted to the memorization of times tables or states and their capitals in deference to endless class time devoted to creating Christmas decorations, Christmas ornaments, Christmas cards and Christmas gifts for parents and siblings raised nary an eyebrow in a community where non-Christians were as unknown as aardvarks and emus.

Now, as a child, I had neither theological nor constitutional objections to this practice – I was just no damn good at arts and crafts.

Therein, perhaps, lies the origin of my persistent, low-grade discomfiture with the season. From my earliest age I have demonstrated a complete and hopeless ineptitude in the practice of even the most rudimentary of the visual arts. For all my life, the only thing I have been able to draw is a conclusion, and that realization has resulted in a lifelong horror of craft fairs and a deep aversion to any manner of decorative do-it-yourself project.

Truthfully, the only positive memory I retain of elementary school art projects is the minty-good flavor of the paste issued to us as first and second graders. To this day I could use it to frost a chocolate cupcake or sandwich it between two Hershey bar squares to make a do-it-myself, stick-to-the-ribs peppermint patty. Unfortunately, about the only thing I could do well with that paste was eat it. I was also incapable of coloring inside the lines, cutting on the lines, or patiently standing in line – the latter deficiency not limited to art class. Throughout my elementary school career art projects meant paint on my shirt, glue on my pants, glitter in my hair and my finished effort put on display on the far bottom corner of the classroom bulletin board, well concealed behind the gerbil cage or fish tank.

I could read, write and do simple sums, but the antlers inevitably fell off my reindeer.

It was enough to make a kid think fond thoughts of long division.

And keep the wreath from my door for a lifetime.