Yo, Yenta!
My gentile roommate is making me nuts with her Christmas decorating. Right after Thanksgiving one of those fake wreaths swathed in green-and-red plaid appeared on the front door, followed by stupid Santa cutouts in the window. I already know what’s coming this week since it’s all she’s been talking about: the tree. She’s basically a nice girl, but she’s trying to rope me into hanging tinfoil or whatever on it and making a party out of the whole thing. I was raised in a home where we had a menorah, that’s it. No lights, no freakin’ Chanukah bush (she actually asked me if I wanted one!), just candlelight, and that’s the way I like it. How can I tell her to back off and that it’s my house, too?

– Help For The Holidays, Long Island, NY

Yo, Help For The Holidays!: One of the more unfortunate side effects of the so-called “Christmas spirit” is that it brings out the worst of the worst in bad taste. Oy, the grotesque elf/angel/fat man in a red suit chozzerai I have longed to snatch off my neighbors’ lawns and run over repeatedly! The astro-turf trees! The seizure-inducing blinking lights in colors insulting to nature! It sounds like you share your home with someone who might wear one of those flashing pins to match her miniature ornament earrings and you definitely need a plan before you find yourself plotting her murder under the mistletoe.
First of all, you must give up on the idea of having a quiet, unadulterated Chanukah. Living well with others means having to compromise. You will only grow more resentful and upset the delicate equilibrium of a successful roommate relationship if you think Miss WalMart-Gone-Wild is going to take the wreath down or refrain from transforming your living room into Las Vegas. You both share this home, so accept that this is how December is going to go as long as you live with her. Pick a table or a windowsill and claim a space for your menorah. Inform your roomie that you’d like this spot kept free of Christmas accoutrements.
You seem to be saying that you’re uncomfortable with the whole idea of decking the halls, but I must say the only defense against kitsch is a good offense. Just because your family was stingy on the Chanukah spirit doesn’t mean you have to be. Make the rounds at your local Judaica shop or online; you could match every one of her red-and-green tsotckes for a lovely blue-and-silver one. The possibilities are endless; glass ornaments with floating dreidels inside, giant bags of gelt, really tacky neon signs that you could hang right over her wreath on the front door. Forget Vegas, with both of you decorating for your respective holidays you could end up with Jerusalem on acid.
The good news is that it will all be over soon. Just in case, though, get her to sign something that states she’ll have the tree out by the curb by January 1.