I went to Sunday School and liked the stories about Christ and the Christmas star. They were beautiful. They made you warm and happy to think about. But I didn't believe them.
My father died when I was young and I was raised by my grandmother, Emma Klonjlaleh Brown. We could afford to eat chicken just once a year, on Christmas.
I've taught fifth-year Christmas leavers last thing on a Friday afternoon. Basically, if you can face that you can face anything.
In 1934, the American Jewish charities offered to find homes for 300 German refugee children. We were on the SS Washington, bound for New York, Christmas 1934.
During the first 13 centuries after the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, no one thought of setting up a creche to celebrate Christmas. The pre-eminent Christian holiday was Easter, not Christmas.
There are some people who want to throw their arms round you simply because it is Christmas; there are other people who want to strangle you simply because it is Christmas.
Now, the essence, the very spirit of Christmas is that we first make believe a thing is so, and lo, it presently turns out to be so.
I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.
I've also committed my time and resources to many local organizations like Christmas in April, Catholic Community Services, and Hudson County Meals on Wheels.
'Make your plate look like a Christmas tree,' I tell people, 'mostly green with splashes of other bright colors.'
I suppose anybody just losing it and sputtering curses is pretty funny. But I think it would be more of a challenge, much more of a challenge, to make a cursing dad funny.
You could probably go three or four months without the word 'God' coming from my dad's mouth; Mum would pray for a parking space.
My dad used to hunt ducks, and my mom would put them in the pot. We lived really modestly. We had very little money.
I made a supreme effort not to do that thing that parents do, which is to bore people without children to death by going on and on about how funny their children are, so there's none of that hopefully.
I like food too much to go on some crazy diet. French fries are my favorite downfall.
Food does not rank high on my list. I eat to live, and I'm very particular about my diet. It's strictly low fat diet for me.
I don't want to be one of those 40-something guys in L.A. still dating, still going out to clubs and chasing 21-year-olds. It's not a good look.
When my mother had four girls, and she could tell her marriage was falling apart, she went back to college and got her degree in music and education.
We all have a responsibility to volunteer somewhere and I'm lucky that I get the education and get taken to places to see what's out there and see what's happening and to then be a part of it in hopefully an impactful way.
If I had spent as much time in the weight room as I did designing football uniforms, I probably would have had a free college education.
I wanted to get far away from those who believed in cruelty, so then I went to France, a land of true freedom, democracy, equality and fraternity.
