Many of you know I am Jewish, but I wasn’t raised in the faith. My parents were actually lapsed Catholics. We never went to church and we celebrated Christmas and Easter in a secular fashion.

After my parents divorced, I suppose my mother was intent on making us appear whole. So when our local newspaper published an article about the family-friendly activity of cutting your own Christmas tree, my mother decided that the three of us (plus her boyfriend) had to bond over this new-to-us holiday tradition.

Sounds homey, right? Well, it was a comedy of errors!

She therefore took pen to paper and wrote a letter to the editor detailing our misfortunes. The paper loved it so much, they splashed it out on the front page with a byline!

Many thanks to Raji at the West Orange Public Library reference desk, who assumed I had suffered from a false memory of publishing glory, and kept flipping until she found the December 13, 1984 article on the fifth page. It is enclosed for your enjoyment. Click to enlarge it.

I apologize for the lack of my usual Gifts for Writers post (but you can read the past posts). Please remember that my books make excellent holiday gifts! (Wink, wink.)