My reflection on Failing to Learn Japanese in only Five Minutes

My childhood consisted of princess dresses, magic wands, barbie dolls, glitter shoes, ballet lessons, jazz and dancing, but most importantly, the color pink. My bedroom was pink. The sheets, pillows, towels, bath mat were all the shade of Pepto Bismol. My wardrobe was pink. From dresses to tutus, all neatly hung in my closet. Pink ballet slippers, pink bags, pink belts, hairbands, scrunchies, ribbons, nail polish. Pink, pink, pink!

Now, maybe that's why I can't stand to wear that color today. My mom still loves it, which is fine as long as she does not impose it on me. The only pink I own is underwear because it does not show. As a matter of fact, I think my mom bought that underwear without me that day.

When I was five years old my best friend was a chubby, pink-loving, blonde, big-blue eyed, girl named Hannah. She has the bluest eyes I've ever seen. They were like her mother's. We used to put on our pink tutus and dance all over the house, Angelina Ballerina style. We'd play dress-up all the time. Once we even dressed up my little brother in velvet pink, and oddly he didn't seem to mind.

Hannah's mother was a Christian and her dad was Jewish, and you're probably wondering why on earth this is important.  The reason is one Christmas we decided to have a joint celebration of decorating the tree at my house.

Hannah's family celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas, so she got double the amount of presents, which always made me jealous. Anyway, so here we were listening to Mickey Mouse or Chipmunk christmas songs, having a great time. Hannah and I were dressed in.. yep, you guessed it pink tutus with sparkly shoes.  We were dancing, which was more like running and screaming around and nibbling on animal crackers, because I mean, come on who doesn't love animal crackers. My mom brought out all her ornaments. Here is a little info on my mom: she collects ornaments from around the world, expensive, antique-y glass one, not the ones on sale at Walmart, I mean seriously our tree is like a world map.

After our attempt to decorate the tree the adults basically re-did the whole thing, I'm not talking about one or two ornaments I mean literally the whole tree. After their redecorating preparing dinner and setting the table began, which at that time we were too young to do.

As we were dancing, out of nowhere Hannah decided she didn't like where the tree was located, so she  began to move it. We didn't even know how a pine tree was related to Christmas, or even the story behind Christmas for that matter, all we cared about were the presents... hopefully wrapped in pink paper! Hannah always got her way, she was the most persuasive, motivated five year old I have ever known, and next thing I know all by herself, she is dragging the tree from one corner of the room to the other.  Lucky enough my mom walked in just as she had finished dragging it, to tell us dinner was ready, but when she saw Hannah moving the tree, and her expensive ornaments teasing the floor she kind of freaked out. I mean I don't go to her house and start lighting her menorah. I think her dad might have never let me come over again.

Now there isn't much punishment you can give a five year old for moving a Christmas tree (I don't think she got any punishment at all). I mean she didn't break anything, which was a huge relief. So that Christmas we had the tree on the opposite side of the living room.

Hannah and I have been separated by miles, but whenever we see each other, which isn't very often anymore, all we do is laugh, remembering all the crazy things we did, especially the time she moved our christmas tree. Nowadays the only time I enjoy seeing pink under the Christmas tree is a Victoria Secret bag, hopefully filled with perfume and clothes.

After all these years, I have yet to go to her house and move their menorah.