{"id":14317,"date":"2009-12-15T15:39:58","date_gmt":"2009-12-15T23:39:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=14317"},"modified":"2009-12-15T15:39:58","modified_gmt":"2009-12-15T23:39:58","slug":"missing-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=14317","title":{"rendered":"Missing Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a very personal autobiographical detail,&#8221; said Dennis Prager on his radio show Dec. 15, 2009, &#8220;but it really shook me up and began my oddysey toward who I am today. I was 20 years old when I went for my junior year to England. During the Christmas break, which was about three weeks, like most students in England, I left England for warmer weather. I crossed the English channel, took a train down the western part of Europe, then to the bottom of Spain and then took a boat to Morocco. This was on my own. This was a very adventurous trip. I was in Morocco for Christmas that year. To my amazement, because I monitor my own emotions a great deal. I have a lot of feedback. I&#8217;m very fortunate in that way. I realized what&#8217;s troubling me. I&#8217;m missing something. To my amazement, I didn&#8217;t immediately realize it, but I was missing the Christmas season. It was not Morocco&#8217;s fault. It&#8217;s a Muslim country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t believe how I missed it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was two years away from immersion in Jewish education. Of course I never had it, but it permeated my life. My parents, both Orthodox Jews, would watch the Christmas mass from Rome every Christmas eve. I loved it. My father, I and the Pope were all wearing yarmulkes.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a very personal autobiographical detail,&#8221; said Dennis Prager on his radio show Dec. 15, 2009, &#8220;but it really shook me up and began my oddysey toward who I am today. I was 20 years old when I went for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=14317\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[20437,20436,20435,29761,17623,1085],"class_list":["post-14317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dennis-prager","tag-adventurous-trip","tag-christmas-eve","tag-christmas-mass","tag-dennis-prager","tag-muslim-country","tag-orthodox-jews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t<!-- All in One SEO 4.9.10 - aioseo.com -->\n\t<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&quot;It&#039;s a very personal autobiographical detail,&quot; said Dennis Prager on his radio show Dec. 15, 2009, &quot;but it really shook me up and began my oddysey toward who I am today. 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