Introduction
This is another story that has a very personal origin.
I’m not a Grinch by any means, but Christmas as a kid just wasn’t a fun time in our household growing up. We were well enough off and the presents were very cool. But between Dad’s rants over the bother of the Christmas tree, his mother’s imprecations of vile doom for forsaking her father’s faith (a rabbi back in the old country, not that she kept up any of the Jewish traditions either), and my own mom’s joy in a green tree with pretty lights and ornaments… Let’s just say that by its very nature, a Jewish household can be very angsty place.
Further, Christmas was when we’d go visit my father’s parents in Florida. Flying down from mid-winter in New York, Florida felt so splendidly warm that they couldn’t force my sister
