Everytime Hanukkah rolls around I'm reminded of the first phone call I ever received. I was 4 years old. My best friend was an Irish Catholic kid named Steve who got on the phone to wish me a "Happy Harmonica!"

My small town was 50% Catholic, 50% Protestant, and two Jewish families (one of which was mine). I can still picture my mom taking the phone back from me and sharing a hearty laugh with Steve's mom. Neither he nor I understood what was so funny.

To this day my family members still wish each other a Happy Harmonica--not to make fun of Steve, but instead to remember the sweetness of that gesture lobbed by a lovely 4 year old across a cultural divide neither he nor I could see from inside our shared love of hide and seek.

Hate to end on a sour note, but I just opened my email to find this. America is great when our politicians don’t gin up stupid culture wars that encourage white Christians to feel aggrieved and persecuted.

If you feel excluded when someone wishes you “Happy Holidays,” then congratulations, you might be a reactionary, theocratic bigot!

I wish my Christian friends a “Merry Christmas” all the time, because I know they celebrate that Holiday. I do not, however, wish total strangers a “Merry Christmas” because I (correctly) don’t assume that every person I meet is a Christian.

This thread feels relevant here. https://twitter.com/sethcotlar/status/1333808013841375232