The Jewish American tradition of eating Chinese food at Christmas is rooted in pragmatism and loneliness. In the mid-1900s, America’s two largest non-Christian immigrant populations shared the experience of watching the world grind to a standstill each December, as their friends and neighbors vanished into their extended families, leaving behind empty cities where everything was closed, except the Chinese restaurants.
On a windy Christmas night in Albuquerque, I took a walk in the footsteps of my East Coast immigrant Jewish forefathers and took my two little boys out for Chinese food. My wife isn’t of the tribe, but works on Christmas like a good Jewish American, making it easier for observant co-workers to take the day off. Like the Chinese food-eating trailblazers who started the tradition, we had nowhere to go, and not much else to do.
