My Great Aunt Ella was a legend in her own time. "The Johnny Appleseed of chessed," one irreverent cousin once declared, after reading a book about the well-known figure, and the name stuck.  In our family, Aunt Ella was the soft touch, the gentle, kindly soul that could see no harm in anyone, even boisterous ten-year-old boys who tracked mud into Mom's spotless kitchen or rowdy teenagers who pelted each other with the harvest of the lone peach tree that stood in our back garden.

I recall the first time I was invited to a dinner hosted by a group for which I was speaking. I ordered a fruit plate—"No cottage cheese, please, no dressing." When the event organizers inquired about my choice, I told them I was on a special diet. I was reluctant to reveal that I kept kosher. I felt uncomfortable. I had lived a highly sheltered life for over forty years. I was the daughter of Holocaust survivors who had learned to be cautious about their faith and observance.

From Brooklyn to Boca This past Monday we finished celebrating Chanukah. Here is a glimpse of what the Festival of Lights looked like in homes around the country and the world.

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Reb Yosef was an Iranian man, no longer young, who used to stop by our house from time to time. My husband had met him at a wedding, where he was collecting money to buy insulin for his sick mother in Iran. He felt an affinity for us because our last name, Ben Shushan, indicates that my husband's family originally came from the same area of Iran that he was from, and because he enjoyed speaking the French he had learned in Iran with us. He would come to the house, accept a cup of tea and something to eat, then take a donation to help his mother and leave. We never knew when he would show up and were never clear where exactly he lived or how he kept himself fed and clothed.

Magdu and Ambat Eyob grew up in neighboring villages in the Quara district of northern Ethiopia. "Even though the Jewish community was small, we made sure not to marry cousins," says Ambat, serving soft drinks in the family's apartment in Jerusalem's Neveh Ya'acov neighborhood. "The men farmed, and women stayed home with the children."

When I was growing up, we never visited my father's sister, my Aunt Shirl, who lived in Boston. The very mention of her would cause my mother's eyes to cross. I knew that my mother couldn't bear to be around her, although I didn't know why. The few times I had been with Shirl, she seemed lovely.

My earliest Christmas memory: I am 5 years old, sitting on the bench seat close beside my father in our aqua and white Buick, the one that looked like a saddle shoe, on a mission to get the best Christmas tree we can find.