Andrew Q. Gordon

Every year Mike and I have this debate with ourselves, should we get a tree or shouldn’t we? By the time we get around to buying one, half the Christmas season is over and we ask ourselves, do we really want to spend the time and money on a tree. Every year we come to the same conclusion – yes, we need a tree. This year, ‘lil q understands that ‘she’ has a Christmas tree – and it has lights. Sunday we decorated the tree. We waited until she took her nap to begin. With two of us we just managed to get it done before she woke up.  When she saw her tree she was beaming. Made it so worth …

Trying to shop with a toddler is like trying to herd goats – it sounds hard, but it ends up even harder. But with the Thanksgiving to Christmas time at under 4 weeks, we had to ‘multitask’. One of the tasks I didn’t let fall by the wayside was our weekend daughter/daddy breakfast. Every weekend – usually Sunday – I take her out to eat while Mike walks the dog. I get so little time to see her during the week – she’s still sleeping when I leave and at most she’s up for 2 hours after I get home and that includes, dinner and bath time – that I wanted a time for just us. When asked where she …

‘lil q had her first holiday concert on Friday. Yes, I’m one of those parents who took off work early to be there and to film it. She walked in with her class, looked around but couldn’t see us.  I snapped a few pictures:

One of My Favorite Christmas Memories One of the greatest joys of my life is my son, Nicholas. He’s far away now, living with his husband, Tarik, in Montreal, but I miss him every day. Around the holidays, I think a little more about Nick and the many happy Christmases we shared when we were all living much, much closer together in Chicago. One Christmas, though, stands out. Because Nick’s mother and I divorced when he was six years old, we had to share him on the holidays. Usually, I got Nick on Christmas Eve and his mom would take him Christmas Day. One year when Nick was in high school, all the forces aligned to make it a very …

A Sense of Family When I think of Christmas, I think of family. Christmas meant going to my grandparents’ home on Christmas Eve with my aunts, uncles, and cousins to feast on an abundance of food (always several different types of fish), play games, and laugh. We’d sing Christmas songs led by my uncle, who sang totally off-key. We made memories.

Countdown to Christmas with Erik 5 days and counting Thank you for hosting me today, Andrew. I’ve enjoyed all the wonderful holiday stories you have been posting this month. They are fun and heartwarming—exactly what Christmas is all about. My name is Erik and you may remember me from PIP’S BOXING DAY WISH, one of Deanna Wadsworth’s THE NAUGHTY NORTH POLE books which tells the story of how my boyfriend Pip and I became a couple. We first met in MS. CLAUS’S LIST when I signed up to spend Christmas Eve in Ms. Claus’s chambers. When I wrote my name down, I had no idea I would find the love of my life that day, or that he would be …

Memories of Christmas Past Christmas holds so many wonderful memories of family and Christmas past that when Andrew asked me to share something about Christmas especially in regard to families and children, I found myself reliving so many joyous Christmas memories, both from my childhood and my daughter’s, recent and decades ago.  It was a tough choice but in the end I chose to go way back to my own childhood and an overworked Dad and Mom who never failed to bring the magic and joy of the holiday season alive each and every year.

Kids and Christmas—What Santa Doesn’t Tell You Even though my oldest son was born on December 12th, let’s face it—that first Christmas was sort of a bust from his end, and the second wasn’t much better.  I mean, long hours, lots of people, too much noise, too much excitement, and too many people not-the-mama or want-the-daddy are trying to hold you—how awesome can Christmas really be for the very very tiny?  The adults are losing their minds.  “Ohmigosh! It’s a toddler in a Santa hat, couldn’t you just die!” And seriously—you add a kitten to the picture or a puppy or hell, even a gold fish in a bowl with red and green rocks, and, yes, sugar shock will set …

לדור ודור (“From Generation to Generation”) I grew up in a household with two non-observant (culturally) Jewish parents, but that didn’t stop us from singing Christmas carols or even having a Christmas tree. To say I was a bit confused about religious holidays as a kid is probably an understatement: I was totally lost!  As I got older, I came to realize that Jews have an innate need to be part of the “feeling” of the Christmas holiday season.  I think this is part of the reason that Chanukah, one of the least important Jewish holidays, has become a fixture of American holiday culture.  Perhaps it also explains Jews’ uneasy relationship with Chanukah. But to only look this far in …

Andy, thank you for having me today, and thank you even more for organizing this holiday event. Christmas can get so hectic and it’s nice to take a minute or five to reflect on what a special time of year it is. Christmas has always been the most important holiday for my family. We have all sorts of traditions that make it wonderful, but this year I will be missing out on most of them. This year is the first year I won’t be going home for Christmas. I am sad to be away from family over the holidays (although they are coming down to see me on Boxing Day, so I can’t complain too much). And this year marks …