This Christmas, Stuff Yourself Silly With General Tso's Chicken. It's the Jewish Thing To Do.
The American-Jewish tradition of eating Chinese food on Christmas is my favorite ritual to partake in, second only to pulling in a cigarette on a cool fall morning. To me, this meals offers Jews a way to coalesce around a dinner table and savor in the some of the finest, most succulent dishes on this planet. It’s like a mini-Shabbat that offers a break in the capitalist zoo that is Christmas (and Hanukkah), although it is nonetheless consumerism, just tastier.
Chinese food—that is, real Chinese food—is unbeatable. Trust me, I know: I used to live and work in China. There, I ate Chinese food every day, which makes it just food, but boy is it miles better than anything else on the planet, including old world Jewish food. (Wanna argue with me on this? Try some red-braised pork belly named after Mao. Then try that lox bagel and let me know what’s what.)