Posts Tagged ‘recipe for play dough’

My Best Christmas was Chanukah

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011


I was never walked into a temple.  Never.  Not by my dad, the Jew.  I thought being Jewish meant eating lox, bagel & cream cheese in a deli.  Because that’s what my dad, the non-religious Jew told me.  When we ate at Nate n’ Al’s, he would announce loudly as he seemed to be pointing to the food, “We’re Jews!!!”

I sang with my friend Cindy Lou Carlson in her church for the Christmas pageant.  Those rehearsals alone put me in a church more times than I was ever in a temple — at least until my kids and step-kids became B’nai Mitzvah.

I’m assuming my mom was some sort of Christian, but your guess is as good as mine.  She never walked us into a church and never spoke of any religion.  So, there you go, two parents – one gentile, one Jewish — who offered zero religious guidance.  We called ourselves half-and-half.  This was pretty commonplace in Beverly Hills, though each family would often choose a side and go to temple or church.  Christmas or Chanukah.

We celebrated Christmas, tree and all.  Show business was up and down and some years we had big-time gifts.  The trees were bigger in those years.  At other times we might have skimpy trees with few gifts.

One year, I scored.  We all scored.  My dad had a friend who had a TV show and he finagled a bunch of freebie popular toys of the day for us.  I coveted Patty Play Pal.  She’s all I ever wanted.  I wonder if there were Chatty Cathy people and Patty Play Pal people.  I just dug how big that doll seemed.  I was little, so for me she was huge.  That year, my mother got her new hi-fi and played it continuously Christmas day.    Holiday paper and ribbon were strewn about as Bobby Darin belted “Mack the Knife.”  And I got my big-ass doll — a new friend in my wonderful fantasy-filled life.  My brother got shit he wanted.  We had pogo sticks and stilts.  We were a very happy family with a house filled-to-the-brim with every hot toy and gadget.

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