While I have always identified as Jewish, I have fond memories of some of the eighty-two December 25ths of my life. This is notwithstanding the fact that I have serious resentments of the fact that my December 15th birthday always falls in close proximity with Christmas Day and Chanukah. There have been just too many combined presents. But I digress.

My father was raised in an orthodox Jewish home but my mother, who was the monarch of our home, was raised by agnostic parents. While I have no memories of my first few December 25ths, I recall one that came shortly after my 4th birthday. We then lived in a small one-bedroom apartment on 14th Street near Military Road in North West Washington, DC. “We” included my mother, my father and my agnostic maternal grandmother, Ernestine Littman, who had immigrated to the US from Bucharest, Romania in around 1900.

My mother decided that I would miss something if we did not celebrate Christmas so she decorated a small 3’ pine tree and placed a small pile of presents which greeted me when I woke up on the morning of December 25. And I was told that a person named Santa Claus had left them for me because I had been a very good boy. (I have never been accused of that again.) After that occasion, my father must have decided that Christmas trees sent the wrong message to a young boy who was about to start Hebrew School so there were no more trees.

I do not believe that my younger brothers had the thrill of finding presents under a tree on Christmas morning. But there may have been one or two Hanukkah bushes.

When I was seven or eight or so, I started my compulsory music career with flute lessons from our neighbor, Dominic Iascone. The lessons were in his kitchen. Shortly after that, I was “enlisted” in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Boys’ Club Band which was modeled after the United States Marine Corp Band. We had dashing red coats, navy blue pants with a red stripe and a blue hat. Our conductor was a retired Marine Corps band leader, Col. Leon Brusiloff. As a flute player, I was always positioned directly in front of him. I know that I was his favorite because of the numerous times he would hit me on the top of my head with his whip-like baton. Presumably because I had hit the wrong note but I am not certain of that. If this tactic was employed to correct me, it was not effective.

Why do I mention this in a column about Christmas? Because every Christmas Day, starting around 5am, we would put on our marching uniforms, including capes for warmth, and visit hospitals and homes for the aged and play Christmas carol concerts on their lawns. The last stop was the White House lawn where we would serenade the President and his family. I do not recall that the President ever made an appearance. I do recall, however, that it was always very cold and there is nothing like the feel of a frozen piccolo on your lips while trying to get through the solo of the Stars and Stripes Forever.

It is important to note that, while I learned to play a number of instruments apart from flute and piccolo, my lack of enthusiasm for any of them was matched only by my lack of talent. This career ended when I went off to Washington University in St. Louis. For the Christmas holiday during my first year, I took a train home. The journey was scheduled to last about thirty hours. But then it snowed and snowed and snowed. As a result, the windows by my seat (not a sleeper cabin) frosted over. Of course, the heaters were ineffective. And the ride went on and on with some interruptions to clear the tracks. Seventy-two hours later, we arrived at DC’s Union Station. And Christmas Day had passed. I never tried that again.

In 1968, Christmas Day to me was just weird. I had spent the year teaching tort and contract law at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. I was preparing to return to the US but not before experiencing Christmas Day downunder. The end of December there marks the end of the academic year and the start of summer vacations. The weather is sunny and hot, very hot. Nonetheless, as in the northern hemisphere, depictions of Santa and his red winter coat and his reindeer drawn sleigh are everywhere. How weird is that!

My first wife, Carol, was not Jewish and that Christmas Day was taken very seriously by her family in Shreveport, La. There were always piles of presents under a magnificently decorated tree and the main event of the holiday was on Christmas morning and was called “doing the tree.” This meant that a family member Santa would distribute the presents one by one. The process took at least an hour and left everyone happy with their new toys or ugly neckties.

Years later, we generally spent the school holidays in Maui. Overtime, I learned to be comfortable with sleigh bells ringing in the tropics. And learned to say: “Meli Kalikimata” or “Merry Christmas” in the Hawaiian language.

The best part of this time of year is the widespread holiday spirit of family and friends and the whole community which can be shared by all whether you believe in Santa Claus or not.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!