Hey Kleenex! I’m a Jewish Man, and I Love Your Christmas-Themed Tissue Boxes
‘Tis the season, and Mazel Tov, Kleenex, for converting me over to your festive Christmas-themed boxes of two-ply, anti-viral goodness. I never knew what my nostrils were missing until I blew them into the tissue born from a box with ornate nutcrackers on it.
You didn’t ask for my opinion in the pre-marketing discussions, but that’s okay. I’m way too old to stick my runny nose up at a box of tissues simply because the design doesn’t align with my religious views. In fact, I believe the decorative Christmas-themed box of snot rags is about as lit as a menorah on the eighth day of Hanukkah.
Would I have preferred a box of Hanukkah-themed tissues instead? Probably. There is certainly a market for them. There are about as many cold viruses circulating out there as there are annoying Jewish nose jokes, so it would make sense to have our own holiday representation. But we are far from an era of tissue-themed equality in this country, so I’m not going to let my disappointment prevent me from getting into the holiday spirit—even if it isn’t technically my holiday.
Are the boxes overtly Christmas themed? Not really, but the one with the cringe-looking Santa doesn’t really give a “Happy Holidays” vibe, does it?
My personal favorite is the one with the non-binary gingerbread people on it. One of them wears a hat and nothing else while another has only a frosting belt that holds up non-existent pants. Fabulous! We simply don’t have that level of holiday creativity over here.
Between you and me, though, I think my kids might be disappointed in me. I put them through a lot of Hebrew School and Jewish guilt just to proudly display these decidedly not Hanukkah boxes in the two-and-a-half bathrooms of our undecorated home in a relatively middle class neighborhood. They’ll get over it, with a little gelt and some time.
Merry Christmas, and thanks for allowing all of us a festive outlet for our nose blowing activities this holiday season.
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Josh Lorenzo is a part-time humor writer, featured in various places, such as McSweeney’s and the Washington Post. He writes a regular satirical column, Don’t Feed the Animals at Political Animal Magazine. You can reach him on Twitter at @theathrofsrcsm, where he has at least 11 followers.
