Putting Him At Trees

(I am a cashier at a department store where we sell a little bit of everything. I work over in the Home department which includes Garden. It’s around 10 pm and just a few days until Christmas when I have this man come through my line with a Christmas Tree.)

Me: “Hi! Did you find everything all right today?”

Customer: “Yeah. I bet this is something you’ve never seen before. A Jewish man buying a Christmas tree.”

Me: *I look at him, not realizing he is Jewish, and then look at the tree and shrug* “No one said you had to get the tree to celebrate Christmas. I read somewhere that in Europe, in a country where the sun doesn’t come up for months at a time, that they would bring the trees into their house and decorate them with ornaments and candles because they knew that they wouldn’t see the light or nature again for months. And that’s where the Christmas tree supposedly comes from.”

Customer: *he stared at me and then grinned* “Wow! That actually makes me feel a lot better! Thanks!”