Christmas, on the other hand, is a royal pain in the tuchus.

I remember Christmas-time during the year when my younger sister was in kindergarten. She came home deeply distraught because one of her friends had told her, "You're going to hell because you don't believe in Jesus." I tried to calm her down and explained that people believe different things ("Jesus was just a mediocre Jewish carpenter."), but it reminded me of the feeling of ostracism from my own childhood. Granted, most of our friends don't besiege us with threats of eternal damnation anymore, but the fact remains that we live in a Christmas-laden society.

By far, the most painful aspect of Christmas has always been the music. Especially in retail stores and the like, it seems as if all the normally innocuous muzak has been replaced with Christmas tunes by the day after Thanksgiving.

You're just out at the bookshop for some enjoyable downtime browsing and then up come the strains of Christmas music. I never expect it the first time each year, but my beautiful classical music has been tossed in favor of some classic Christmas song that echoes in my head as, "Jesus and Santa and Rudolph and everyone else celebrates Christmas except for you."

This is why I avoid most stores during December. I realize that most people do not dislike Christmas music to the degree that I do, but I think we can all agree that at best, it can become quite annoying. And then if you try telling someone (be it the store's music programmer or the carolers at your door) that you don't celebrate Christmas, they'll gladly toss on some non-religious Christmas tune to appease you.

Yes, I realize that "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" does not explicitly mention Jesus, or Santa, or Christmas. This technicality does not excuse it from being a Christmas song as far as I'm concerned. It's on all the Christmas albums, the Christmas carolers sing it, and you only hear it around Christmas-time. Ipso facto, Christmas song.

There are a few ways I deal with this deluge of Christmas music. Like many people, I take refuge in the three or four Hanukkah ditties out there. Adam Sandler did a great mitzvah for the Jewish people when he wrote his Hanukkah song. Also, I find parodies of Christmas songs to be mildly amusing, from Tom Lehrer's riffs on commercialized Christmas to hastily created Jewish-themed parodies ("You'd better not kvitsh, you'd better not kvetsh...").

Once we've gotten past the music, though, I feel that the rest is bearable. Sure, many Jews get the Christmas blues and feel like Kyle from South Park singing his "lonely Jew on Christmas" song. But really, there's no reason to be stressed. The Christians have to deal with decorations, trees, a plethora of presents for their family to be bought during the most crowded mall season of the year, etc. We get to show up for their Christmas parties and eat some free food, having already dealt with all our Hanukkah requirements.

And as for Christmas Day itself, I look forward to it with great anticipation every year. Oh, I used to think of Christmas Day as the culmination of the entire depressing Christmas season. But you know that on December 25th, when the rest of your town shuts down and puts up blinking lights, the Chinese restaurants are going to be open. And in those Chinese restaurants, there will be Jews. Lots of Jews.

A few Christmases ago, two Jews saw each other at The China Buffet in East Greenwich, RI and realized they'd seen each other at same restaurant the previous year. Two hours later, they saw each other at the same movie theater that they'd seen each other at the previous year.

They decided to begin sponsoring "Dinner and a Movie Night" every Christmas for their fraternal organization. They rent out an entire Chinese buffet, and give everyone tickets to any show at the movie theater across the street.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: There's something wonderful about a restaurant filled with Jews eating Chinese food on Christmas. It just feels right. I can't quite explain it -- it's not just a feeling of solidarity, but you look around at Goldberg, Mandelbaum, Shapiro, Rosenblatt, Weinman...

Jews! Jews all together, filling an entire restaurant with folks who know what it's like to walk through a normal day while everyone around you is celebrating Christmas. There's something that just feels perfect about going up for my third plate of boneless spare ribs and crab Rangoon (Chinese food has the magic to make pork and crab kosher) and looking around to see myself surrounded by other people who appreciate the importance of Chinese cuisine to Jewish culture.

I would strongly encourage anyone who likes the idea to start a similar outing in their own organizations. If you don't have an organization, just take a friend or two out to your local Chinese restaurant to celebrate the season. I guarantee you that as you look around, you'll see fellow Jews, celebrating what I like to call "Jewish Christmas". You might even see me; I certainly recall seeing Jews I know when I go to Chinese restaurants at Christmas. And you don't have to know them, there's a shared understanding that goes far beyond words.

Last year while, I was eating some spare ribs at Fortune Garden, I watched a couple walk in who were clearly Jewish. I just smiled at them, and they smiled at me. In that smile were a thousand stories, stories of feeling left out as a kid, stories of celebrating with a Jewish family, and the story of the present -- the story of how Jewish people can enjoy Christmas by dining out at the one type of restaurant that's always open. It's because of this that Christmas is now a holiday I almost look forward to.