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Even though I’m Jewish, I enjoy the traditional spirit of Christmas and look forward to spending this time of year with family and friends.

To me, Christmas evokes warm memories.

I can do that.

Twenty years ago yesterday I sat for this photo in Yokohama, Japan. The gaijin next to me is my mom. On my other side is mom’s old friend Setsuko. We’re seated in the living room of their friends the Nakajimas (to the left of my mom).

Mom and I had just landed in Japan from Hong Kong, where she’d been visiting me.

I spent the next day, Christmas Eve, recovering from some kind of stomach bug or food poisoning I contracted back in Hong Kong (the first and only time I got sick while living in Asia). It could have been from the fish maw soup we ate in the bowels of Mongkok.

The rest of the trip passed without incident. It was my mom’s first time back in Japan since she left in 1965.