Happy Chrismukkah

The holiday season is a festive if not always uncomplicated time in my household, one of many reasons I miss Michael Kelly. Kelly was a gifted writer and editor whom I got to know after he moved to a North Shore town near mine. He died in Iraq, at age 46, while covering the war for the Atlantic. An intrepid battlefield correspondent, Kelly also addressed a domestic issue facing many of us at this time of year: how to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah, or some hybrid thereof, in a modern interfaith family.

Kelly was Catholic, his wife Jewish. In his essay "The Eight Days of Tom and Jack," Kelly approached the holidays as both a collision of religious traditions and an opportunity to teach his sons the true meaning of the season. Thus had 5-year old Tom Kelly been given a toy police-car light for Hanukkah, his father wrote, "so that he may follow the ancient Jewish holy practice of impersonating a state trooper."

Regarding the white-lights-vs.-colored-lights debate, Kelly proudly proclaimed himself a person of color. Whereas white lights cater to the Martha Stewart set, he noted, colored bulbs convey the message that "Christmas is not Christmas without an electric sled and reindeer on the lawn, an electric Santa on the roof," and so on. Boys, according to Kelly, are naturally disposed toward colored lights.

Like Kelly, I come at the holidays from an interfaith (mostly secular) perspective, finding joy in virtually any high-wattage display of seasonal cheer. Growing up, I was religiously schooled in the Gospel According to FAO Schwarz. My father, a nonobservant Jew, loved Christmas. My mother, a lapsed Christian Scientist, was born on Dec. 25, resulting in our hallowed family tradition of ignoring her birthday every year in a frenzy of present-swapping. On Christmas Eve, we'd visit my grandfather, a man not overly fond of young children, who'd don a Santa suit and ho-ho-ho around as if he'd escaped from a Macy's parade float. My brothers and I naturally preferred colored lights, the more the merrier. The only Stewart we cared about was Jimmy.

Holiday traditions evolve, my own being no exception. My wife is Jewish. So are our two children, who have learned (I'm proud to say) not to ignore their mother's Dec. 24 birthday. We light the menorah and say the Hanukkah prayers. The yule tree got mulched for keeps 10 years ago. Now the do-not-open-til-Xmas presents rest under the piano, which mercifully requires no watering. Our outdoor lights twinkle monochromatically, in marked contrast to the Grand Guignol show that decorates our yard every Halloween.

We try to remind ourselves of the season's true meaning by hosting a Christmas Day family dinner and by making modest donations to the needy. Nevertheless, what's "true" for some often strikes others as truly inappropriate. Just ask Ron Gompertz.

Five years ago, Gompertz caught an episode of Fox TV's "The O.C." that revolved around Chrismukkah, a satirical hybrid holiday cooked up by the show's writers. To Gompertz, it sounded a lot like Weihnukkah, the mostly secular holiday his German-Jewish forebears celebrated for generations. As Gompertz explained to me by phone from Montana, he'd already been thinking about religion's impact on society. His father, a Holocaust survivor, had recently died. His wife, a Christian minister's daughter, was about to give birth to the couple's first child. The question of how to celebrate the holidays was looming. "Humor is a great way to relieve pressure," observed Gompertz, adding, "It doesn't get any more 'Chrismukkah' than it does in our house."

An inspired Gompertz soon came up with a book, line of greeting cards, website, and other tchotchkes pegged to the faux holiday. When lawyers sent letters alleging trademark violations, he silenced them with "prior use." O holy night.

Before long, though, Gompertz also began hearing from anti-war-on-Christmas fruitcakes - joined by one prominent Jewish leader - who accused him of undermining the holidays' "spiritual integrity." Happily, Gompertz has refused to surrender. He still decorates his family's Christmas tree with mini-menorahs and teaches his daughter's schoolmates about Hanukkah. The Stewart uppermost in his thoughts this time of year, he says, is Jon, proud patriarch of a mixed-faith family.

I'd welcome Gompertz to my holiday table anytime. And before anyone accuses me of trivializing the season's true meaning, be advised: I have a police-car light, and I'm prepared to use it.

Joseph P. Kahn can be reached at jkahn@globe.com.