The competition between Chanukah and Christmas — an annual nightmare for Jewish parents — has been well-documented by popular culture.

From the legendary Chrismukkah episode of The OC to Ross Geller’s Chanukah Armadillo on Friends, it is a well-established truth by now that when it comes to the big December holidays, Jewish kids are always at a loss.

“But that’s because Chanukah isn’t actually a major holiday,” Jewish parents tell their children, sulking over their dreidls while their Christian friends scoff chocolate Santas and candy canes.

“It just seems like it because it’s in December and the goyim have convinced the world that this is when the big holidays happen. But they’re wrong! The big stuff happens in the autumn! And a bit in the spring! And we pre-date this December nonsense by thousands of years, oy vey!”

And so, here we are now, in autumn, and it’s time to pay the piper.

“So it’s autumn now,” my kids say excitedly. “Big holiday time for the Jews, right?”

“That’s right,” I say. “Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Succot, all one after another. It’s non-stop holiday fun, starting with Rosh Hashanah. Wow! Boy, all your Christian friends will be jealous of you.”

“Does Santa come and do we get loads of presents, mum?”

“Umm no. Someone blows a ram’s horn — ”

“Doesn’t the ram mind?”

“No we killed him and — ”

“We WHAT?!”

“Never mind. Then we dip some apples slices in honey, then we light some candles and eat.”

SILENCE.

“That it?”

“Apples! In honey! Did you not hear me?”

“Hmm,” say my kids. “Well, maybe this is just the warm-up. Yom Kippur is big, too, isn’t it? Bigger than Christmas?”

“Damn straight, bigger than Christmas,” I say.

“So does that mean we get to sing lots of lovely songs, decorate a pretty tree and get presents?”

“No, it means we don’t eat for a whole day to atone for our sins.”

LONGER SILENCE.

“That it?”

“Um, yeah. That’s kinda it.”

“OK,” say my kids with now desperate optimism. “There’s still Succot, right? That’s gotta be the big one.”

“Well, to be honest, it’s relatively minor, it just happens at the same time.”

“But it’s a fun one, right?”

“Oh sure it’s fun. You build a small wooden hut and eat some fruit in it.”

EXTREMELY LONG SILENCE.

“A hut?”

“Yes! A hut! That you get to build!”

“So,” my kids say. “You’re telling us that while our friends Christina and Marie get stockings and sleigh bells and chocolate and presents, we get some apple slices, a day of starvation and a hut?”

“Um, yes.”

“Right, where’s a priest? I’m converting.”

No one said being a Jewish parent was easy. But this year, I discovered a little trick. My kids are all in mainstream schools and it turns out there is an unexpected benefit to that.

Rosh Hashanah is, as you all surely know, on a Monday this year and Yom Kippur is on a Wednesday (no one knows when Succot is). With lockdowns safely behind us, going into school is already the dreary daily norm for them. So I pulled this trump card out of my hat.

“Before you convert, you might like to know that, because you’re Jewish, you get to SKIP SCHOOL on September 26, 27 and October 5 this year.”

“What, as in stay home when all of our friends have to go?”

“Well, go to synagogue, but basically yes.”

“Wow! Being Jewish is awesome!”

And that, dear readers, is how you ensure your children grow up with a respect for their religion and a love of tradition.