Fetivus for the Rest of Us. 12/26/25

By the time you read this, it’ll be the day after Christmas. But I’m writing it on Christmas Day. What? Christmas? How could I? It’s easy. I’m Jewish. Christmas Day for a Jew is 1) go to a movie, followed by 2) go out to for Chinese. Now, not every Jew is the same. My daughter, for instance wants a tree, ornaments, the whole nine yards. And she celebrates Hanukkah as well. Ever since she was able to speak she kept wanting a Christmas Tree. And we kept telling her, honey, we don’t celebrate Christmas, we’re Jewish. Until one year, when she was 4 or 5 years old, she was in her car seat and defiantly crossed her arms and said, “Fine, when I grow up I’m gonna marry someone Christmas!” And so she did, and they are very happy celebrating both.

To my wife, Christmas used to mean watching one of three Christmas movies, a different one each year, with her daddy. You know the three. Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life, and White Christmas. She wanted to continue the tradition with me. I love Miracle and Wonderful Life but for some reason, I kept avoiding White Christmas. I mean, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye singing and dancing for Army troops? No thanks. I finally broke down and watched it last year. And I must admit, I liked it and even teared up a little at the end. Okay, more than a little. In fact I was so engaged, I looked up some fun facts about the movie. To those of you who have never seen it, it revolves around these soldiers who hear that their old pal, the General, has retired and bought a hotel in Vermont, but was struggling because it hadn’t snowed. They put on a big show to help him out and at the end, miracle of miracles, it snows! They all go outside and look up as the snow falls on their faces, their hands and on their tongues. I asked Chat GPT how the producers made it snow, thinking they used a snow machine like they do on ski slopes. But this was 1954 and that technology didn’t exist. So you know what they used instead? Asbestos. That’s right, and they stuck their tongues out to catch the “snow” in their mouths. I think the end is worth watching, just for that.

So to sum up, Christmas means different things to different people. For John, it’s a houseful of family, and grandchildren running downstairs to open their presents (although at an early age, the kids like the boxes and ribbons much better than the actual gifts inside the boxes.) I remember a couple years ago, my daughter and son-in-law turned a big box upside down, cut a crescent-shaped hole in it so their 2 year old could crawl into her “fort”, and that beat every other present by far. For me, we’re going with friends to see Song Sung Blue with Hugh Jackman playing a Neil Diamond impersonator (embarrassing fact: I freaking love Neil Diamond), followed by an early dinner at Szechuan Village, followed by one of the three classics back at home.

Since this is the 52nd and last blog of the year, we wanted to take the opportunity to thank all our loyal readers for continuing to engage every week with The New 60 Comic. That’s the best present of all,

Andy and John