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Pictured here are latkes I made for my family last year at Hanukkah. I find - somewhat absurdly - that I have strong opinions when it comes to latkes. Here are the latke principles for which I stand:

The holiday of Hanukkah begins this Wednesday night.

I’m pretty sure my family coined the term Christmukkah. We were interfaith hipsters, once we realized that the alternative, Festivus, wasn’t really for the restofus.

Growing up in the Reform community in the US in the 50s and 60s, I remember the constant discussions of the Chanukah-Christmas dilemma. Was it possible to disengage Chanukah from the seasonal linkage to Christmas, and keep it somehow true to its roots? Or was it doomed to be "the Jewish answer to Christmas," which increasingly meant an orgy of shopping and materialism? 

Need a last-minute Hanukkah present for the technology-lover in your life?

Are all Hanukkah tales true? Of course - because a narrative can contain truth even if it defies belief. In that spirit, let me share one of my own Hanukkah stories.

As you’ve undoubtedly heard, the Jewish calendar and the secular calendar offer a strange convergence in the United States this year as Hanukkah and Thanksgiving coincide. The Jewish media has been full of humorous articles about combined menus (like this one from Jewish cooking expert Tina Wasserman) featuring foods like latkes with cranberry sauce, and the term “Thanksgivukkah” has been coined to describe the merged holiday.