DAVID MARCUS: How my Jewish father taught me to love Christmas

Every year growing up, there was an orange in my Christmas stocking. It commemorated an occasion I do not remember: my first Christmas, when my Jewish father and Catholic mother, newly married, were too broke to buy me anything else.

By the time I can remember anything, conditions had gotten better, and for my dad, the traditions and trappings of yuletide became something of an obsession. It was with the zeal of the convert, though he never converted, that he was the architect of Christmas joy.