The portmanteau word “Chrismukkah” might have been coined in the early aughts, but this is the first year in recent memory that the Christian and Jewish winter holidays perfectly align. The first night of Hanukkah falls on Christmas Eve, and by the time the final eight candles have dripped down the menorah branches, the ball…
Back in high school, I loved Nutter Butters so much I used to doodle little patterns of their peanut-shaped cookie outsides into the margins of my notebooks. So here’s my paean to the cookies of my youth, which I’ve ushered into maturity with tahini. Related A large part of the motivation for this cookie was…
We make a left out of our apartment and walk on Sixth Avenue, where a wide selection of pine trees are available for purchase. “I want a Christmas tree,” says Ravi, my 4-year-old. “What’s Christmas?” I ask. “I don’t know,” Ravi says. “I like the lights.” Why shouldn’t she want a tree? Pine trees especially…
(JTA) — The first night of Hanukkah falls on Dec. 24 this year, but don’t fret: You don’t have to choose between the family Hanukkah party and the time-honored tradition of eating Chinese food on Christmas Eve. Instead, why not take advantage of this calendrical coincidence and embrace both customs? We’ve compiled some delicious, Chinese-inspired dishes…
As we pulled into the Salt Lake City cul-de-sac, our realtor said: “So, you guys should know that this street is actually called Christmas Street by the locals. Everyone decorates and has for the past 70 years.” Though I had never hung a stocking in my life, I paid little mind to his words. The…
This first night of Hanukkah falls on Christmas Eve this year, a collision of holidays that — for me, at least — inevitably brings to mind all the classic Christmas songs that have been written by Jews. Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” is the big blini, of course, having been covered more than 500 times since…
The city of Bath, England is a quiet and small one. In fact, I’m not entirely sure how it constitutes a city; with a population of barely 100,000 and no buildings exceeding ten stories in height, it’s hardly the teeming metropolis of Manhattan that I grew up in. Nevertheless, it is a city that I…
In 1949 my father first began to play Santa Claus for the kindergarten class at Mason School in St. Louis. My dad, Paul Blumenthal, owned a nearby neighborhood pharmacy, Paul’s Drug Store, and he soon became well-known in South St. Louis for his animated Santa portrayals. Perhaps part of the allure was the fact that…
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