it is, after all, half of the rivera family heritage. my mom was absolutely resistant. she absolutely refused. she wouldn t acknowledge christmas for many years. and we kept lobbying her and lobbying her. come my mom. we feel left out. let us celebrate christmas also. no, no, no. you re jewish. no, no, no, no. finally, when we were teenagers, we said to mom, mom, we re not going to take it anymore. we re going to celebrate christmas, just like all of our friends and neighbors do. but this is what we re going to do instead of a christmas tree. we re going to call it a hanukkah bush instead of christmas or hanukkah. we re going to call it chrismukkah. and we had all of these compromises. and to placate my mom, we also played rock of ages. when we sang jingle bells and silent night and all the traditional. christmas christmas. carols, we finally got our tree. it was called the hanukkah bush.