Merry Christmas, everyone.

I hope your holiday has been filled with the joy of the season.

As a Jewish family, we always celebrated Christmas. According to family lore, this tradition began with my mother’s parents. Her father was a physician, and somewhere along the way they decided to host a Christmas party for his patients and their friends. The idea, I’m told, was to lift the burden of hosting from their Christian friends and to create a place for anyone who might feel alone at that time of year.

I’ve never quite thought of it this way before, but their Christmas party was a mitzvah.

In any case, the tradition continued with my brother, sister, and me. We never had a tree—that was vetoed by my father, who grew up in a much more traditional Jewish home. But we had everything else: stockings, lots of presents, and marzipan pigs. And despite my father’s outward bah-humbugging of the holiday, it gave him immense joy to see his children swimming in a sea of wrapping paper.

More on him later.

I remember being old enough to realize that most Jewish families didn’t celebrate Christmas and asking my mother why we did. Her answer was that we weren’t celebrating the holiday itself, but what the season represents: peace on earth, goodwill toward all. A time when, no matter your background, your ethnicity, your color, or who you love, we recognize that we are all in this together. How you find peace with the universe is your business—and that is okay.

I’ve celebrated Christmas in that spirit ever since, because it makes complete sense to me. We can take one day a year to embrace each other with love and kindness.

But this year, I’m celebrating a little differently. Not because of the King of Mar-a-Lago and his disciples—I’m not going to let his lack of understanding of kindness and compassion poop in my Christmas cornflakes. It’s because, for the first time I can remember, I’m not spending the holiday with my family.

Before I go any further, let me add that I am spending it with the person who means the most to me in the world: Elaine. Last night we had a wonderful Christmas dinner, exchanged presents, and maybe even found a little mistletoe. Christmas would not be Christmas without her. She is my guiding star.

That said, my much younger sister—who I usually spend the holiday with—is in England with her family, celebrating with her ninety-six-year-old mother-in-law, who was widowed earlier this year. She is exactly where she needs to be, and I think that’s wonderful. We just miss her, my niece and nephew, and her terrific husband, Mark.

But before you get all weepy for me, stop. I’ll see my sister, her family, and—while we’re at it—our much older brother in just two days. In Vienna.

Later today, Elaine and I will head to the City of Waltzes, and to the city of my father’s birth, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Pop’s birth. In many ways, this feels like a Christmas miracle. The three siblings have never taken a holiday together. Not even as kids. (Did I mention my sister is much younger than my brother and me?) That we’re able to make this trip and carve out the time feels both amazing and deeply special.

I share all of this because, for the next week or so, the tone and timbre of my Substack will shift—from the political to the personal. That’s not to say politics won’t peek through now and then, but for the most part, I’ll be focusing on Pop and his legacy.

So this Christmas, I’m carrying all of it with me. The family I grew up in. The family I’ve built. The absences. The reunions waiting just around the corner. The love that stretches across time and geography and somehow holds.

In Vienna, I’ll be walking streets my father once walked, marking a century of his life while feeling his presence more than his absence. If the holidays are about anything, it’s this: remembering where we come from, honoring who shaped us, and finding moments—however fleeting—when the past and present sit together in peace.

That feels like enough. And more than enough to be grateful for.