Today being Christmas, and my (temporary) home being only a 20 minute drive from Nazareth, it is only logical that I would go there. However, I am never logical (as the remainder of this post will prove) and I would hate to find a parking spot in Nazareth on Dec 25, so I will be heading in the opposite direction.

Some background: The family from Russia I am friends with consists of:

1. The father, who is a Christian atheist.
2. The mother, who is a Jewish atheist.
3. The 15-year-old daughter, who is Jewish (chiefly because she learned a bit about the religion in school).
4. The 7-year-old daughter, who has no idea about religion at all.

For about 6 years, I have given the family giant baskets full of unhealthy Christmas goodies (eg: chocolate Santas). However, three years ago, I announced that none of the goodies were for the older daughter. She looked stricken until I handed her a wallet with eight 100 shekel notes in it and told her that because she is more Jewish than anyone else in the family, she gets to celebrate Hanukkah instead, and each note represents one day of the holiday. She was thrilled and it established a tradition, which I have repeated each year.

Still, it seemed to me this year that it is a bit unfair to the younger daughter, whose view of religion is the tiny bit she has learned about Judaism and the greater amount she learned about Christmas from watching Russian-language television shows. (In fact, she still believes in Santa Claus but now suspects that Santa and I are the same person.) So today, I am taking the family to lunch but from there we are heading to a large toy shop where she can pick her own Christmas present while Santa uses his Visa card to pay for it.