In praise of work

     So over Christmas, when you were supposedly on vacation, did you miss work?
     Did you keep working anyway, even though you were allegedly off?
     Don't feel bad. You're not alone. I worked too.
     Force of habit.
     If you don't use your vacation days at the paper by the end of the calendar year, you lose them, and when I realized that four were about to evaporate, I figured I had better schedule them. Around Christmas seemed a good time—nothing much happening anyway. 
     So I took a few days off, and smiled at myself when, about 6 a.m. Wednesday morning, my first day of vacation, in theory, I found myself in my office at home, on the paper's DTI system, migrating obituaries onto my own computer, because we're shifting over computers in the next few months, and I didn't want them to vanish. 
     Now that is not exactly "fun," but it isn't quite "work," either, in that I wanted to do it. Had I stayed in bed, I'd be lying there, thinking, "I should migrate those obits." Rather, I was using the more relaxed day that not having to go to the office or produce anything for immediate publication to get done some things that needed to get done but I hadn't done yet. And to top off my sybaritic luxury and relation I ran an old column here. So it really was a true vacation...
     Or maybe I'm deceiving myself. Maybe I've become a slave and I don't know it. I should wake up and ... what? Go run around outside? Get on a plane and go somewhere I'm not interested in? I've got a lot of stuff to do, and I like getting it done.
     Is that bad? I don't know. I like working, writing stuff, doing the research for writing stuff. When I find myself feeling bad that I can't, oh, afford watch that shows phases of the moon, I remind myself that at least I get to spend my time doing work I find enjoyable and meaningful, which is just as good, if not better. 
     When I finished with the obits, I turned to my main vacation activity that day, one that I had been looking forward to for some time: transferring the copyright permission language for my next book from the various contracts they have resided on to the pages where they will appear at the back of the book. That wasn't quite "fun" either, in the relaxing on a beach in Maui sense, but then, if I were in Maui, on a beach, I would be squirming, trying to block the sun with my book, and feeling like I should really be getting those copyright permissions transcribed. I really don't like the beach. Never have. 
     You have to be who you are. When my column used to appear in the New York Daily News, I would take my vacation, fly to New York, and write columns there, and I remember realizing this, looking up from the keyboard in a windowless office in New York, and smiling quietly to myself, very pleased. Taking your vacation from one job to go work the same job somewhere else. It seemed hard core.
     I hope that doesn't make me a joyless grind. Can you be a joyful grind? Any person who finds himself in his mid-50s doing what he likes to do has to consider himself blessed. You can shuffle along a beach when you retire, not that I can ever afford to retire, which might be another reason I'm working all the time. 

     Nor could I let the blog slide. I thought about it. Maybe even wanted to, in the change of pace sense. Hanging up  an "On vacation" sign and letting you—those of you who aren't computerized web crawlers, mechanically trying to post "This is interesting content, visit my discount Viagra web site at" spam messages—just shrug and go try again another day. I'm sure you could cope with the absence for a day or four. As it is the web, Facebook and Twitter and such, seem more and more a whirling trash cyclone of dull garbage anyway. What's one blog more or less? 
     But the end of this blog's first full calendar year is five days away, and I might as well finish out 2014 without breaking my streak, provided that reprinting old columns from time to time doesn't count as a break and, since I'm in charge, here if nowhere else, I can determine that it doesn't.
     So I guess today's theme is in praise of work, even if you are on vacation. The standard media take on working while on vacation is undesirable, and if what you're doing is answering emails from angry suppliers, maybe that's warranted. When you are your own boss, well, I'm tempted to say that if you love something, it isn't work, but that isn't true. Anything you have to do is work, particularly if you have to do it to a certain level. 
     But work is good, like religion, it gives significance to life. A false significance, perhaps, but I'll take what I can get.  There's nothing wrong with being true to something, day in, day out, savoring it. Nothing wrong, even, with bragging a little, even if you aren't a genius, even if the world isn't clamoring its praise. There is a wonderful poem by Robert Browning called "Andrea del Sarto" about a skilled but not brilliant painter, who is no Michaelangelo, but hasn't done badly either. Some famous lines in the poem— "A man's reach should exceed his grasp/ Or what's a heaven for?"—and some fine lines that aren't famous. He's talking to his mistress about how he pushes forward, even though he's tired on some days, uninspired on others, trusting "this low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine" to see him through. At one point he brags a bit: 
                                       I do what many men dream of all their lives,
                                       —Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
                                      And fail in doing.
    That's true for most people with any kind of success. Any lawyer digging through a pile of briefs this Christmas should remember there are thousands who never got past the bar exam; every plumber should think of those poor shmoes who couldn't even get a foot in the door at the union hall; every doctor rushing away from Christmas dinner to see a patient should recall all those classmates who washed out of med school and would thrill at his dullest day, and savor his most annoying inconveniences. There's plenty of time to rest when you're dead.

Cops keep a Christmas vigiil

     This story of patrolling the Second District on Christmas Eve, 1986, was one of my favorites — it gave me a lot of respect for the police, respect that I try to maintain, despite the vigorous way that cops frequently undermine themselves.
    The mid-1980s city it shows is in some regards gone — not only in the many landmarks, the housing projects and gang headquarters and such, but in the way the police actually let the media watch them work. They’ll say their trust was betrayed; in my view, they got scared, and insular and angry, curling up in the tight defensive ball that serves them so poorly with the media they despise and the communities they screech up to in their squad cars and try to serve and protect. 

     If you notice how long this story is — 2300 words — you’ll see another change. The paper does sometimes print stories of this length, but rarely, and I doubt that I’d get this in, since it reveals no pressing scandal or hard news. Which is a shame, because I think it shows the challenges police face in a more significant way than any five second video clip or outraged union statement. 

     It's 6 o'clock Dec. 24, and Tom Eich, badge No. 17815, and David

Baez, badge No. 17696, are philosophical as their patrol car sweeps by

the landmarks of their police district—the Robert Taylor homes,

Stateway Gardens, the Ida B. Wells homes, DuSable High School.

      "The low ones on the totem pole get [Christmas Eve duty]," says

Baez, 36, who has been with the force only a year. "Seniority will get

you the day off."

      "My wife comes from a police family, so she more or less expected

that I would have to work on Christmas," says 33-year-old Eich, a

former electrician who joined the police force 11 months ago. "It's

part of the job."

     Riding in Car 211, the pair has been on duty since 3 p.m. So far

the shift has been quiet—a domestic disturbance and a "nut call," a

man who thought he heard noises coming from the walls.

      Baez drives, chewing gum. He is a handsome man with black, curly

hair. Eich is balding, with a sandy mustache and glasses. He works the

radio, glancing from side to side, looking for trouble.

      The Second District may be the smallest in the city, but it

includes 64 Chicago Housing Authority buildings. As many of those who

celebrate Christmas prepare for the evening's festivities, Baez

randomly turns down driveways, alleys — places most Chicagoans have

never been and would never dream of going.

      "You shouldn't have a pattern," says Baez. "You want to be

unsystematic. If you get a pattern, they'll time you, and know where

you'll be."

      From time to time, strange whistles echo in the darkness.

     "Signals," says Eich. "To let them know the police are coming.

It's something like the old cowboy-and-Indian days."

     It's time for a swing by the squat Ida B. Wells homes, and through

the low canyons of the high-rise buildings.

     "They like to shoot at the cars," says Baez. "But someone has to

go in there. The worst is when the elevator's broken and you have to

use the stairs. Sometimes they put in a call for the top floor, and

ambush you on the way up."

      The car rolls past a pair of men warming themselves beside a

blazing trash can at a lot on the corner of Indiana and Pershing. Eich

points to an Olds 98 ahead.

      "Cracked windshield," he says. "You want it?"

       Baez directs a spotlight into the car and it pulls over. Baez

and Eich get out of the car and walk over to the Olds. A small man in a

jumpsuit gets out. Windshield cracked? It was a rock. Just happened.

About to fix it. Unconvinced, Eich tickets the driver.

      "The crack was all the way across," says Baez. "It's something that
you can't let get away, at the right speed it could shatter, blinding the 
driver. We've hopefully gotten him to fix a car that could cause a

problem."

      A call comes over the radio — youths stripping an auto in a lot

on Wabash — and Car 211 is on its way. Baez guns the squad car — a

Crown Victoria LTD — down State Street, flipping on the sirens only to

blow through stoplights, then shutting them off to avoid tipping off

the culprits. Other police cars join in the chase, radioing their

positions in crackling bursts of numbers and streets.

      Baez cuts down side streets, searching, trying to figure out from

the radio where the suspects would be. The car roars through an alley,

veering around obstacles, bouncing along the potholed surface.

      "I'm actually one of the slower drivers," says Baez, grinning at

a visitor cowering in the backseat. "They call me Slowpoke."

      Five teens are discovered lounging against a car, and Baez and

Eich are out of the squad car in a flash, talking to them. No, they

haven't seen anybody. In fact, they were the ones who called police.

The policemen are smiling and joking with the teens. Baez places what

appears to be a friendly hand on the back of one teen and tells them to

be careful.

      "I was checking to see if their hearts were beating like

trip-hammers," he says later. "They have to be if they came from over

there."

      No car-stripping suspects are found, but now Baez is alerted to a

van creeping along with a couple flat tires. He tries to run down the

van's license-plate number through the team's mobile computer, but a

message is coming across.

      "I would like to take this time out to wish every officer a

merry, merry, merry Christmas," the computer says, in glowing orange

letters. Baez turns the computer's screen so his partner can see the

message.

     The pair talk about how they approach patrol on this holiday

night. "Early in the shift, I'm looking for movers, at the same time

listening to the radio, listening for something nearby," says Baez.

"You don't become complacent because there's so much going on."

     "If anything, on Christmas, we'll get more domestics," says Eich.

"Somebody who wants the drumstick, or isn't getting to watch their

movie on the VCR."

     A call comes over the radio about an armed robbery, eliciting a

wry expression from Eich. "Don't they know it's Christmas Eve? That

they ain't supposed to be sticking people up?" says Eich, who makes a

running commentary on the calls coming over the radio.

     They aren't needed at the armed robbery call, but head over to a

three-vehicle accident with injuries.

      The smell of gasoline hangs in the air at the corner of Root and

State, and cubes of broken glass litter the intersection. A green Fury,

its back end smashed, is pushed onto the sidewalk. Two women lay
on the ground nearby, curled up and moaning. Across the street, a 
blue Montego, its front end crumpled and windshield shattered, is on
the opposite sidewalk. Fire Department paramedics work on a man on
the ground, while four children, seemingly unharmed in the backseat,
are led to an ambulance.

       A crowd of onlookers gathers. Sgt. Mary Rozell is in charge of

the scene, and sends Car 211 to close off one end of the street. She is

busy directing victims to ambulances and ambulances to hospitals, but

finds time to reflect on working this holiday.

      "It's not another day — it's Christmas Eve," she says. "But I'm

not married, and we've got a union contract."

    With the ambulances on their way to the hospitals and the gasoline

hosed off the street, Baez and Eich are released from their

street-blocking duty. They decide to call in a request for "lunch."

     The meal request turns them into detectives of sort, as they try

to find a restaurant open on Christmas Eve. A pizza parlor and a

Mexican eatery are closed, but the Bridgeport Restaurant is open.

     Eich uses the lunch break to phone his sister's house, where his

wife and three daughters, ages 9, 5 and 6 weeks, are celebrating

Christmas.

     "They're opening up their presents," he says, returning. "Santa

Claus has been there. This is the first time I missed it in a long

time." He crumbles crackers into his soup. "They always put up a pretty

nice shindig," he says, a little wistfully.

     Baez, also married, has three sons, ages 12, 8 and 5.

      "They're tickled pink daddy's a policeman," he says. "My wife...

my wife experiences her anxieties. But she tries to keep them to

herself, and she knows that I will do my best not to get hurt."

      More policemen come into the restaurant, talking about the

accident and about a drunk who accused his girlfriend, who also was

intoxicated, of stealing money. An officer recounts how the girlfriend,

to prove she wasn't hiding the money, had started stripping. With the

help of police, the money was found inside a drawer.

      "Only on Christmas Eve," the officer says. "They all come out of

the woodwork."

      No sooner are Eich and Baez back in Car 211 than a call of

criminal damage to property comes in.

      "That could be almost anything," says Baez, explaining that the

severity of a crime can't be determined always by its code number.

      The criminal-damage call is minor — a low-rise with a window

broken three hours earlier. The police report is needed to get the

window repaired by the CHA.

     With an hour left in the shift, the pair stops on Oakwood to do

paperwork.

     A few minutes later a call comes through of an overdose at an

address on Indiana Avenue. Car 211 responds.

      The address is a three-story apartment building. The stairway is

painted bright blue. A door on the second landing is ajar, and Baez

eyes it carefully as he goes past. Two doors are at the third landing.

Eich raps on one with his long flashlight. A voice comes from inside.

     "Police," Eich says. There is a pause and sounds of confusion from

inside. Eich raps again, harder.

     A woman lets him in. Inside, what had once been one rental unit

has been divided into many tiny apartments, all the walls painted the

same bright blue as the stairway.

      In one room they find two brothers, Reginald, 22, and Willie, 26.

Reginald is suspected of having overdosed. He sits swaying on a spindly

metal chair, his eyes half shut. The kitchen is garishly lit by a single bulb,
and roaches crawl up the bright blue walls. On the kitchen table are two
40-ounce bottles of beer, a dirty mixing bowl, a paper bag, a package
of rolling papers and a canister of salt.

     Willie explains that the two began drinking at 9 a.m., but he

didn't know his brother had taken any pills. He also says that Reginald

has tried to kill himself twice before, and that he suspects this is a

third attempt.

      A surreal dance begins between Willie, Reginald, Baez and Eich as the

policemen try to get Reginald to his feet, keep him awake and get 

information from him.

      Eich asks Reginald what he has taken, and Reginald says,

"Penicillin." At the suggestion of Baez, Willie hoists his brother over

to the kitchen sink and, with one arm wrapped around Reginald's chest,

begins awkwardly slapping water into his face.

      Soon, Reginald's shirt is soaked, but his head still rolls from

side to side. Willie starts slapping Reginald, who takes several hard

slaps across the face before he realizes that something is happening.

He pushes Willie away and starts to go after him, cursing and swinging.

Baez restrains him from hitting Willie, while egging him on to be angry

and awake, and Eich radios for an ambulance.

      "You didn't care about me alive, why should you care about me

dead?" Reginald shouts. He slumps to the floor, and is jerked to his

feet.

     The paramedics finally arrive. "Come on, you're walking," says

paramedic Scott Peters. "I'm not carrying you downstairs."

     A paramedic and Baez walk Reginald downstairs. "Christmas is the

busiest time of the year," says Peters, on the stairs. "We've had 18,

19 runs so far today."

      In the ambulance, Reginald is hooked up to heart monitors, given

oxygen and restrained. Willie hangs around a while, talking to his

brother through the ambulance door.

      "Don't come back here no more," says Willie, who then turns to

Baez. "He needs some mental help. Lock his butt up. He can't come by my

house no more, un uhh."

      Car 211 follows the ambulance to Providence Hospital. The

overdose has been upgraded to an attempted suicide. At the hospital,

another District 2 squad car is bringing in an aggravated-assault

victim, a man whose white T-shirt is caked with dried blood. At 10:55,

they are doing the paperwork on the suspected attempted suicide when

the man with the bloodstained shirt slips his restraints and starts to

crawl away down the hall, babbling. Baez and Eich rush over, with a

clutch of doctors and paramedics, to help that victim back into his bed

and strap him down.

     "It was a reasonably quiet night," says Baez, on the way back to

the station. "Almost zero `man with a gun' calls — maybe two or three."

      A minute or two after 11 p.m., Car 211 pulls up behind a blue

Gremlin with no brake lights or taillights. "Nada, no lights," says

Baez. Eich points out the time — their shift is over — and Car 211

takes a pass on the Gremlin and turns into the station.

      "At least the front lights are working," says Baez, checking the

rearview mirror. "He just got his Christmas present."

       —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Dec. 29, 1986

"Where else can a Jew eat at Christmas?"

Thai-Chinese buffet in London

     
     Like many Jewish folk, we'll be gobbling Chinese food this evening—not in a restaurant, but carry-out, with friends. This story, like yesterday's tree tale, is also from 1998, and is noteworthy because a) I broke form and focused on a Thai restaurant, which also do brisk business on Christmas, though all the attention goes to Chinese restaurants; and b) after the story ran, a rabbi phoned me to complain that it somehow maligned the concept of a "Jewish tradition." The smart thing to do would be to cluck pacifying noises and get off the phone as quickly as possible. I of course didn't do that, but, sincerely aghast, tried to make the rabbi understand that his phoning and bitching about nothing made Jews look worse than the supposed slight he was complaining about. 
     Let's just say I did not win him over to my way of thinking. A reminder not to spoil your holiday with snits. However you chow down this evening, Merry Christmas. 
     
     Midafternoon Christmas Day, and five of the seven woks in the kitchen of Star of Siam are sizzling and steaming over orange flames as white-tocqued chefs tend to spicy shrimp and cashew chicken.
     They are watched by Eddie Dulyapaibul, owner of the restaurant at 11 E. Illinois as well as four other downtown Thai restaurants, all of them open on Christmas.
     "There is no holiday for your stomach," he said. "We are like nurses, police or the Fire Department -- we have to be here, as long as people have to eat."
     Asian restaurants are known as havens for the wide range of humanity who have a hankering for Szechuan beef or crispy noodles on a day normally associated with baked ham and roast turkey.
     "Where else can a Jew eat on Christmas?" said Randi Schafton, 36, dining with her husband and friends at Mars, a Chinese restaurant at 3124 N. Clark. "Christmas at a Chinese restaurant is a Jewish tradition."
     A Jewish tradition, perhaps, but also a Muslim one. At Star of Siam, Shaukat Fidai and a dozen of his family members -- a brother, a sister and lots of kids -- held a festive celebration of several family members' birthdays.
     "At Christmastime, it's a family thing," said his wife, Mumtaz.
    "We do believe in Christmas," said Sadiq Fidai, 22, of his family, who are Pakistani Muslims living in Palatine, Naperville and Darien. "Jesus was one of our prophets."
     But a key motivation for dining at that particular restaurant -- one of their favorites -- on Christmas Day was the ease in getting there from the suburbs.
     "No traffic, we got parking -- that was the best part," Aly Virani said.
     The New Peking Restaurant, 3132 N. Broadway, was utterly empty at 5:30 p.m. But the owner, Lily Chou, said lunch had been "so busy" and that she was expecting a late dinner rush.
     "A lot of our customers were very happy that we're open," she said, noting that the restaurant began opening for Christmas this year.
     At Star of Siam, Egis Petonis and his five friends sat at a window table a few feet from the Fidai party. The tourists from Lithuania had searched for an hour before finding an open restaurant. They went in, even though they had never eaten Thai food. They rated it highly, if different from Eastern European fare.
     "It's very good," said Aureliga Rimkut, 25, adding that they had their traditional Christmas dinner the night before at a friend's house.
     The sentiment was echoed by Gordon and Carol Kopulos, of the Southwest Side.
     "Our big celebration is Christmas Eve," Carol Kopulos said. "We come here to relax and be waited on."
     They were joined by their daughter, Piper, her classmate at Dominican University in River Forest, Jeremy Kitchen, 28, and their friends, Mike and Gloria Gilles.
     The Kopuloses did note a hint of protest in their Thai feast, however.
     "We wanted to be cosmopolitan and are disillusioned with all that religiosity,'' Gordon Kopulos said.
     "We don't like the regular Christmas thing," said Piper, 19.

                    —Originally published in the Chicago Sun-Times, Dec. 26, 1998

"Please pet me"

   
     The flight to Tokyo turned back 20 minutes after departing O’Hare. Mechanical problems.
     The plane to Houghton, Michigan — No. 4 four on a list of worst airports in the country — never left at all, and the Dragon family of Estes Park, Colorado had to spend the night with friends while scrambling to get another flight, settling for one to Green Bay, only 230 miles south of where they were going. Eva Kornerup, 12, didn’t like the sandwich her mother had bought for her.
     All those woes, just three out of the infinity of angst, delay, setback and inconvenience that is so much air travel in 2014, were softened, at least for a few moments for holiday travelers at O’Hare Airport over the past few days, thanks to the good offices of a septet of Golden Retrievers.
      The dogs — which on Monday morning were Chloe, Adeena, Barnabas, Luther, Ruthie, Aaron and Tabby, a puppy in training — were there with Lutheran Church Charities’ K-9 Comfort Dog Ministry, started in 2008 and centered in Addison. The group now operates in 16 states, with 80 dogs and 400 volunteers.
     “Hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living,” said Richard Martin, executive director of K-9 Ministries. “We also do disaster response. Several of these dogs spent time in Sandy Hook, in Boston after the Marathon bombing, Napa after the earthquake. So they get around.”
     The canine ministry was brought to O’Hare for four days, Saturday through Tuesday, by United Airlines.
     "The holidays can be stressful for people," explained Charles Hobart, a spokesman for United. "Airports are more full than they usually are. The comfort dogs offer the customer the chance to sit back and relax a little."
     The dogs certainly seemed relaxed. They generally laid on their sides, almost as if asleep, the "A-1 Comfort Position" which these dogs learn during eight weeks of training, the same training given dogs that act as comfort animals for people with psychological conditions.
     Most harried air travelers Monday on the B concourse at O'Hare — pulling rolling bags, talking on cellphones — strode by without a glance. Others, particularly children, gave them longing looks but kept going. A few made a beeline, scratching the dogs under the chin, even falling to their knees and hugging them.
     "It's really nice to get to a place where you don't expect to see animals, to be able to pet them," said Chelsey Blackmon, 26, a New York video editor, who at first thought they were bomb-sniffing dogs, then realized there were just too many of them. "You feel a certain kind of warmth that animals provide. It's really nice."
     "It's medically proven petting a dog will lower your heart rate, lower your blood pressure," Martin said.
     Each dog was paired with a blue-shirted handler, mostly volunteers. The handlers gave out blue candy canes and encouraged passersby to pet the dogs, though sometimes no encouragement was necessary.
     "When we see them coming, you know the dog lovers," said Sue Kessler, a volunteer, holding Chloe." They just turn and 'awwww!' They head right in like a magnet." She said one passenger who petted the dog returned and admitted that she had never touched a dog before. "We've had people going to Vietnam, China, all kinds of long flights. A woman, 30 hours in travel, said this was the best part of her day today."
     The dogs were particularly welcomed by travelers who are dog owners.
     "We have a 90-pound lab mix at home," said Matt Dragon, stranded at O'Hare because of a canceled flight, as his 14-month-old daughter, Iris, sat happily petting Ruthie and Luther. "She misses Louie."
     "They come here, they may have just left their dog at the kennel," Martin said. "They just smile. The dogs evoke such a positive feeling."
     Even seasoned travelers who seemed to have no stress whatsoever, like Markus Hugi and his son, Marlon, 14, drifted over. Residents of Barcelona, Spain, Hugi works as an aircraft designer in Switzerland. They had stopped in Chicago for a few days to look at the architecture and were now on their way to Las Vegas.
    "We travel a lot," Hugi said. Marlon sat quietly petting for a long time, as did Eva Kornerup, 12.
     "It's really sweet," said her mother, pointing out that they had a golden retriever at home. "It feels very happy, and we don't worry so much about the flight."
    "Oh God, they're so beautiful," said Sue Truax, whose own dog, Dockers, had to be put down in August. She slid to the ground next to Chloe. "I love these dogs. If I could fit one in my backpack, I would. This is just a cool idea. I love it. Thanks, you guys. This is just too cool."

Attention Jews: Resist the tree

     I'm generally live-and-let-live when it comes to faith.  All religions are airy nonsense and only familiarity combined with personal bias permit us to view some doctrines as strange and laughable and others as normal and respected. Thus, to me, it doesn't matter what habits and ceremonies your faith demands: wear a special hat, bow to an idol, burn incense, decorate a tree, believe some 2,000-year-old fairy tale is literally true. It's all the same and no skin off my nose.
    Generally. 
    Only two situations prompt me to object. The first is when groups enlist the government to enforce their own dogma. That isn't playing fair. If you believe God is on your side, why do you need Uncle Sam too? The government is supposed to be the neutral arbitrator between equally ridiculous sects. That is a fine distinction, perhaps, one that is lost on many—they feel oppressed when the governmental stick is pried out of the hands. Some people are so used to having their asses kissed it feels like a birthright to them. Tough. Times change. 
     The second aspect of faith I can't abide by is when Jews have Christmas trees. Oh, I suppose there are exceptions: if you're in an inter-faith marriage, well, maybe your Christian spouse wants a tree. Then it isn't your tree, it's your wife's, or husband's. The reason I feel so strongly ... well, here's a column from the vault where I try to explain. Note that Friday is not Christmas this year; it's Thursday. I'd hate to mess up your entire holiday, and probably should just change the day in the lede, but then some wiesenheimer would point out that Christmas fell on a Friday in 1998 and attack me for altering the historical record. 

     Friday is Christmas. I will, as is my practice, work at the newspaper so a colleague who observes the holiday can be with his or her family. 

      This isn't selfless of me—the paper pays double time for working on Christmas, and it's a quiet day if nothing burns down. I'm not missing anything except a day at home. My family doesn't eat a special dinner. We don't sing songs, we don't give gifts, we don't have a tree.

     We're Jewish. This sounds simple enough, but a lot of people don't get it. First, there are the Christians for whom Christmas is an event of such monumental proportions—one they start preparing for in July—that they can't understand that there are people who voluntarily give it up. The exchange, which I've had a dozen times, always begins breezily. "What are you doing this year for Christmas?" they'll say. "Nothing," I reply. Their features darken and they struggle to get their arms around the concept. They think I've perhaps misunderstood. "Yes, yes," they say, "but what are you doing Dec. 25?" 

      The second group is a little more surprising. Certain Reform Jews—many, if my social circle is any indication—are not satisfied with paring away the strictures of their own religion, but also must embrace the festivities of another. They put up a tree. They visit Santa. They embrace Christmas because not doing so feels like denial, and they can't imagine denying themselves anything. 

      I find it a particularly repellent form of intellectual dishonesty. Holidays are the fun part of a religion, but religions are not all fun. There are commandments, rules, serious parts as well. To latch onto the frills of somebody else's faith just because they're fun seems disrespectful of both your own faith and theirs.

     It's like crashing a party. You don't know these people, haven't put in the effort that being friends requires. Yet you're lining up for the buffet anyway. It's crass. When I think of Jews celebrating Christmas, for the first time I understand the sort of contempt that some Orthodox Jews have for us lesser Semitic breeds who have shucked the demands of keeping kosher and praying and kept the parts that are easy and enjoyable. There's a sense of expropriation, like teens wearing battle ribbons we didn't earn as fashion. 

     Christmas is a wonderful holiday. Wonderful music. A Christmas tree is a beautiful thing. A high school friend once asked me over to help trim hers, and I had a blast. Hot buttered rum. Great food. Afterward we went from house to house, singing in the crisp night. (Well, I didn't sing, but only because I don't know the words.) How could you not love it? 

      But it wasn't my tree. It wasn't my holiday. I have my own holidays. My boys lit candles at Hanukkah. I got to see their faces illuminated by the candles, happy, singing. My oldest, Ross, is just 3 but has picked up on Christmas. He closely watches the Christmas specials on TV. He saw the Santa on a Christmas card on our mantel and asked why it was there, since we don't celebrate Christmas. I explained that somebody had sent it to us. He had a sort of pout. I asked him how he felt about not celebrating Christmas. He said one word: "Sad." I weighed my response for a long time. "That's OK," I said at last. "It is a little sad not to celebrate Christmas. But we have our own holidays we celebrate." He didn't seem to understand. But he will.
                      —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Dec. 2, 1998