Merry Chrismakah

I was half Jewish for about 2 yrs. REALLY. Mom was married to my stepfather, Lester, who was Jewish. We lived in Worcester (Wouster) Massachusetts and I was in 5th grade. Lester and I DID NOT get along, to put it mildly. He was a complete selfish jackass. He was just how you would picture a "Lester." Black curly chin length hair, glasses, hairy, and a big round belly that looked like he was 9 months pregnant. He used to eat chips in a bowl with tons of extra salt on them and watch TV, he'd lay the bowl on his gross protruding stomach. BLECHHH He was totally into rock and roll, and at the time I was into New Edition, so I thought his music was just loud noise that he would crank up on the stereo all the time. His parents lived in Cranston, Rhode Island, again completely stereo-typical! His mom wore all kinds of big gawdy costume jewelry and had slip covers all over the house. His dad was bald and wore glasses, he was a little man that always said, "HUH? What did you say?" They had another son and he and his wife lived in Salem Massachusetts-yes home of the witches.
I went and stayed with them for 4th of July weekend once with their adopted daughter, Soonyi, she was Korean(yes like Woody Allen's daughter/wife). The whole family just went overboard with inflating this girl's ego, and I felt completely inadequate the whole time I was there. "Soonyi has straight A's, Soonyi is in softball, Soonyi is so good at her clarinet, look at how well Soonyi braided HER VERY OWN HAIR, wow Soonyi is so smart," blah blah blah! By the time my mom came for the cookout on the last day I had pretty much had it with Soonyi. Plus she was so conceited, she criticisms the way I dressed, did my hair, and tried to correct the way I threw a frisbee! On a good note I did get to see the house of the seven gables, and Salem is totally gorgeous!
Hanukkah/Christmas time was different. We did get 7 days of gifts for Hanukkah, as well as our Christmas presents-but the Hanukkah gifts really sucked! They were dreidels or books about Hanukkah, I can't remember what else but it sucked. We had to light the menorah every night and read a passage from the book, which was ok. The food was the worst! It TOTALLY SUCKED!! Matzoh balls, ewww. Potato pancakes, eww. We always knew we would get chocolate money though, that was good.
They wanted me to go to Hebrew school, and I think my mom was ready to let me go. WHAT?? Is that crazy or what? I think his parents were going to pay for it so my mom was going to agree, thinking I would get a better education.
Funny how things work out!!
My mom and Lester had problems, he was a cokehead and he stole our money. He would babysit my brother and I and take us to see the Boston Redsocks at Fenway park (which was cool) at least twice a month, and he would take our money from our piggybanks to pay for tickets and food for all of us. I'm sure they had other problems, but I was just a kid so I didn't really know much. The day he left it was very dramatic and really not a good situation. I guess my mom kicked him out because we continued to live there after he left. The funniest thing, and to this day my brother and I still laugh about this, was when Lester was leaving he took my brother in the hall and said "I'm gonna miss you the most, Jimmy!" and gave him a huge hug.(perv) A few months after that he sent Jimmy a postcard.
That was the last Chrismakah we ever had!