Hanukkah and Christmas make for a delightful mashup so why not celebrate it all?

Wait.Christmas and the first night of Hanukkah fall on the same day this year? December 25th! Thank God! Finally! Can we please keep this up?!My extended family is a mishmash of Jews and Catholics, all committed to their own customs and traditions.

At long last, we can stop running to different homes to commemorate different holidays on different days.I deeply appreciate this divine operational efficiency. In my own home, I’ve done a few 360s over the years.

I was brought up Jewish but quickly absorbed my mother’s unspoken mandate that any overt signs of Judaism were ..

.gauche.

(Shh!) Was it because her family fled Germany and Hungary for Hartford and Ohio and they felt compelled to assimilate? Perhaps.But still.A mezuzah?! Absolutely not. Dancing the horah? Oh no, no, no.

Instead, my mother sent me to ballroom dancing school.White gloves required. My Jewish mother even grew up with a Christmas tree, a tradition passed on to me until I married another Jew who found the custom offensive.

I traded in my glittery Christmas ornaments — a baked, painted wreath, a red shiny ball with my name engraved surrounded by ivy, a gold, tin Jewish star I made at sleepaway camp — for a glittery engagement ring. Gone were the sentimental sounds of scratchy Christmas records as I dove into stuffed stockings.Instead, as a young mom, I meticulously sorted gifts into eight piles for Hanukkah: at least one gift for each night for each of my four kids.

Inevitably, at least one of the kids was disappointed on any given night.And my brain was fried.  I missed the tree.

I missed the simplicity of one big pile of gifts.I missed the milk and cookies for Santa.

I missed being the kid myself.I missed the ritual of adding the star to the top of the tree, the lollipop Mrs.

Claus ornament swaying as we wrestled it on.I even missed the sidewalk negotiations to procure the tree, which my dad always made into a business lesson.

Thanks to those freezing street corner evenings,...