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My folks grew up in New England, and "Boston Chinese" was a whole subgenre of Jewish food for them. I don't know if they specifically had it on Christmas, but it was a regular option.

I'm a NYer, though, and Christmas for me is generally all about movies and Chinese food, and has been for years. I remember once seeing some wonderful plates in a crafts catalog called "Jewish Christmas": they were blue & white, like Chinese dishes, but the center had a movie screen with people's heads silhouetted against it, and the rim had alternating takeout cartons and crossed chopsticks. I've always regretted not buying some for myself.

Somewhere, Christmas will look like this: cheerful children opening presents that don't break by noon; a glazed ham taking pride of place on the heirloom cherrywood sideboard as the heady aroma of gingerbread wafts through the house, which is itself set upon snow-covered hills where the leafy pine boughs are filigreed in ice.

Ha, ha! That's funny. He forgot to mention the building of the toys that takes till midnight and the runs to the convenience store for fifty dollars worth of batteries!

We all have our burdens to bear, no matter what *religious* holiday we are endowed with.

I was married for a time to a man from a devout Catholic family. They lived in Wesley Hills, which is near Suffern (NY). Their neighborhood had shifted over time from being filled with WASPs to being filled mostly with Orthodox Jews. Somehow as this happened the Christmas dining traditions changed, and every Christmas Day the Catholic family who appeared to be WASPs decided they would have take-out Chinese because that's what some of their neighbors did. Obviously some other of their neighbors would not be likely to in terms of the kosherness of the undertaking, but anyway.

Take-out Chinese is an appealing thing, and almost any excuse is a good one to submit to the urge to do it, to my mind.

As a matter of fact a calendar could be made: 365 Days of Excuses to Go for Chinese Food.

One of them might have to have something to do with utilizing the principle of aftselakhis, just for the heck of it.

Not sure what you mean, Ed, when you say that twice-cooked pork and lion's head on Christmas don't seem right... please elaborate.

ed, in answer to your question, i've lived in chicago, san francisco, and paris but never heard of the chinese food for jews on christmas tradition until i moved to new york.

Never really thought about Chinese on Christmas Day. Some twenty years ago we ,moved to Long Island and discovered that the Island literally shuts down on Christmas Day. But the one lantern shining in the window was at Ben's Kosher Deli. So every Christmas Day it's become our tradition to head over to Ben's for some matzoh ball soup, corned beef and pastrami sandwiches, thick cut fries, and bowls of sour pickles.

And possibly a kasha knish if we have the room.

last night ctown was pretty packed. the quote for the wait at Grand Szechuan (by the Manhattan Bridge) was "very long time." Lines out the door at Joe's Shanghai and it's sister restaurant Joe's Ginger. Same at Ping's. NY Noodletown was pretty packed too but at least the line was not out the door. I never knew it would be so packed on Christmas day but it is madhouse.

I am Jewish but I never did the Chinese Food thing on Christmas Day. My family's Christmas tradition was to work at the homeless shelter and we'd have whatever they were being served, usually stoufer's lasagna or meatloaf. Mmmm. (my mom almost never served frozen food so it was a nice treat)

Funny thing is that now I'm living in a DC and I drove down to the National Mall to check out the national tree and I noticed nearly all the Chinese take out places are closed. However most of them were in predominatly Christian neigbhboorhoods.

While Christmas Day may be the busiest day for Chinese restaurants (at least the ones in Jewish neighborhoods!) I think the last day of Passover runs a close second! In Northwest Baltimore it is virtually impossible to get into a Chinese restaurant the very last day of Passover. And they're not even that good to begin with!! Since I grew up in a kosher home this phenomenon is fairly new to me.

We enjoyed christmas dinner on christmas eve, and our choice for dinner on the 25th was Indian food, so we drove out to Cary which is the land of great ethnic food in the Triangle area, caught a Bollywood flick, then drove down the street to Udipi (South Indian Vegetarian), as good as if not better than the Dosa Diner in Jackson heights.

My husband is half jewish (some would say his two halves cancel each other out, and therefore he is not actually jewish) and although he's lived in NYC for over 10 years, claims he's never eaten chinese food on Christmas. . .