This holiday season my wife and I will not both be home for Christmas. Instead we will celebrate our first year of marriage on separate continents.  As we are different races and religions, there are usually challenges we encounter at this time of year, so maybe being 7,000 miles apart will make it easier. We’ve actually resolved the big conundrum for me–the Christmas tree.

I don’t care if you call it a Hannukah bush or an ordinary tree; it is a Christmas tree, pure and simple.  It represents the birth of Christ and it’s not just a secular symbol.  But, it matters to my wife, so we resolved the issue by agreeing, like so many mixed religious couples, to celebrate both Christmas and Hannukah.  Since my boys were raised Jewish, and my younger son just became a Bar Mitzvah, it really isn’t an issue for me anymore.