Read Mennonite in a Little Black Dress (Memoir) (2010) for Free Online Page A

everything to start over in a new and barren land. "And well done on that heirloom rose brooch," Jesus would say. "Splendid work pinning it inside your drawers!"
    Three generations do their work, however. Gone are the days when a crèche was a family treasure to be cherished by lamplight in the parlor. In the span of less than a century, what was once a private celebration of faith has become a public assertion. Who am I to say that's all bad? True, I would no more construct a shrine on my front lawn than proselytize, but, hey, faith witnesses many forms.
    Deena's parents were semiretired Mennonite florists, and thus Aaron and Deena's decor revealed unlimited and enthusiastic access to Thiessens' Nora Flora. Deena could make decor magic out of anything, especially semitransparent fabric with metallic threads, wire bows, silk flowers, and shiny balls. She was also resourceful with toy trains, cookie jars, wallpaper borders, and shadowboxes. I prefer my flowers in water, my trains in Europe, and my wallpaper in the trash. Call me old-fashioned, but whenever I see those wire-fortified ribbons, I have a secret stab of nostalgia for old-timey ribbon, the kind whose ends flop like spaniel ears. I'm suspicious of unnaturally perky ribbon.
    Above the main Christmas tree in the great room was a display ledge on which Deena had arranged four lesser trees, festooned and frantically blinking. But the thing that really commanded attention, high up there on that ledge, was an oversize mechanical fur bear. It was raising a perpetual fake candle to its lips, as if to blow it out. What this bear and its need for darkness had to do with the spirit of Christmas I do not know. But over the audio stylings of ambient Mannheim Steamroller, I could hear the bear's motor. It emitted a tiny agonized silence-of-the-lambs bleat, not unlike the miniature scream of auto-flush toilets at the airport.
    "What a beyooootiful winter wonderland!" exclaimed my mother.
    "Festive!" interjected my father.
    My other sister-in-law, Staci, made a beeline for me.
    Staci and I live three thousand miles apart, and we interact only on the occasional holiday when I am in town. Staci is one of those brisk, efficient, gets-it-done gals who raise children, sell Pampered Chef products, head up the PTA, and plan fund-raisers for victims of house fires. Staci is a no-bullshit person; she tells it like it is. One of the things I like about her is that she doesn't bother pretending we're close when we obviously aren't. I am sometimes away for years at a time, and during the interim Staci does not phone, does not send birthday cards depicting realistic kittens, does not ask me to proofread her annual Christmas newsletter. Between holidays we have no relationship whatsoever.
    Yet when circumstances throw us together, she rolls up her sleeves and goes for it. If family holidays involved a relay, she'd be the one up front to grab the baton. Staci, who attended a Mennonite college but who is not an ethnic Mennonite, has always assumed an easy intimacy that came as a surprise to our household. Aside from my mother, Mennonites do not usually discuss their bodies, especially at dinner. They do not confide secrets, or talk about controversial topics, or provide updates on the state of their libido. Staci, however, might make an eloquent argument against her church's Easter pageant, in which she is playing the guide to Jesus's donkey. Or she might disclose that she has been dying her hair since age twenty-three. She might share highs and lows from her recent weight loss of seventy-five pounds. This relaxed bonhomie declared itself the very evening my brother brought her home to dinner some twenty years ago. On that occasion Staci confided in front of us all, somewhere between the Pluma Moos and Pereshki , that she had a painful rash, and would my mother mind taking a look at it? My mother did not mind in the least, and tripped off down the hall to inspect her future daughter-in-law's private