Do visions of sugar plums dance in your head? Does the scent of pine boughs make you feel like a child again? When you hear those songs, when you see the lights, do you get butterflies? Do you feel the joy and the magic of the season? I don’t.
At a very young age, I remember celebrating Chanukah. I’m not sure if we lit the Menorah or if we even had one. What I remember most is looking forward to receiving a gift every day. My favorite year was the boxing glove one when my brother David and I would stop fighting long enough to put them on before we lit into each other. Each year after that there was one fewer gift until there was just one and then, one year, none. I’m pretty sure we had a small tree once or twice but nothing special. It was set up in the corner of our playroom, and it was adorned with some silver tinsel without a single ornament. I never knew I was missing the smell of gingerbread baking or latkes or even ham because my mother didn’t cook except for assisting our live-in housekeeper by tossing the salad. Of course there wasn’t any help on Christmas Day, so we would go to the country club, The Beverly Hills Hotel or the Beverly Wilshire.
I didn’t think it was different in anyone else’s home in Beverly Hills until I spent the night one Christmas Eve at my friend Mary Lynn’s house. She had the most beautiful tree — — the kind in magazines and in storefront windows on Wilshire…
