It’s Christmas night and also the first night of Hanukkah. I’m visiting my parents in my hometown of Corpus Christi, having traveled from Massachusetts with my husband and children. Colored lights twinkle on the tree, we’ve all eaten too much sugar, and on TV LeBron James drains another 3-pointer in his NBA record 19th Christmas game. I’ve set up a baking tray on the kitchen counter with two silver menorahs, and I’m melting the ends of four candles so they’ll fit inside.

When I learned that Hanukkah would fall on Christmas this past December, I decided to experience the holiday as a native Corpus Christi Jew would. I wanted to feel what it’s like to be Jewish in a city named for the body of Christ.

“Can you mute the game for a minute?” I ask my father. My husband and kids come close, my parents, my brother, and his wife on the periphery, and we begin the first prayer. “Baruch atah Adonai … .” Blessed are You, God, who makes us holy through Your commandments.

The whole thing lasts just a couple of minutes—three prayers and a short song. The candles are lit, and the festivities begin. We skip gifts since my children opened plenty in the morning. We eat dinner, including potato latkes purchased at Trader Joe’s in San Antonio. Then we relax in front of the TV to partake in that most sacred and unifying of holiday traditions: watching Bruce Willis kick butt in Die Hard.

I was raised Catholic and grew up celebrating Christmas and Easter and Las Posadas and Ash Wednesday. I fell in love with my husband, a Jewish man, in college in upstate New York. For many years we lived and raised our family as an interfaith couple. I kept my traditions, he kept his. Our children are officially Jewish, but in addition to matzo and dreidels, they also get candy canes and cascarones because I believe joy transcends culture and because life is too short to deny yourself reasons to celebrate.

Things went happily, if a little confusingly, along like this until 2020 when, amid the forced introspection brought about by months in lockdown during COVID, I decided to convert. Judaism felt right for me both spiritually and intellectually, and I had questions Catholicism could not sufficiently answer. I reasoned that either I’d get the answers I was seeking in Judaism, or I’d learn to ask better questions.

By that point, I’d attended synagogue for years with my husband and children. When I called my rabbi to tell him I was interested in converting, he said it was “a great day for the Jewish people.” I swear he actually said this, and I make sure to remind my husband of it as often as possible.

I also asked the rabbi what would happen to my soul if I converted. Judaism places far less emphasis on the afterlife than many other religions. I wondered if the conversion would impact not only my daily life but also my very spiritual essence. Would I become someone totally new, both inwardly and outwardly? If yes, was that what I wanted? “We would say that your soul has always been Jewish,” he answered. “We believe that converts have always been Jewish, and that their souls are only now finding their way back.”

This answer touched me, for the beautiful sentiment and because I’d previously researched my father’s side of the family and learned that our ancestors were Jews who fled Spain for Mexico during the Inquisition. My family is not unique. Many early settlers in Mexico, especially in the modern-day states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas, were Spanish Jews. They escaped religious persecution by publicly converting to Catholicism before they sailed for the New World. Once there, they either hid all vestiges of their Jewishness or erased their former selves altogether and fully embraced Catholic dogma and rituals.

These Jews are known as conversos (converts) or crypto-Jews, the latter a nod to the Catholic converts who continued to practice Jewish rituals in secret. Many modern Mexicans and Mexican Americans recall seeing an abuelita light candles in a closet on Friday night. When they were asked why, they couldn’t say exactly, only that it had always been done. Others, including ancestors of both of my grandparents, only married other conversos, ensuring the traditions, practices, and cultural knowledge were passed on—if only in secret. My rabbi telling me my soul had always been Jewish was enormously meaningful. I felt I was closing a wound that had opened 500 years earlier, finishing a story that had remained incomplete.

I took the requisite classes and learned to, very poorly, read Hebrew. The following summer, I plunged myself into the mikvah, a small pool of consecrated water, in a ceremony similar to a Christian baptism. Converts must be completely naked, without even nail polish, so the water can touch, and bless, every part of their body. I entered a small, tiled room containing a teak bench and the mikvah, which looks like a large hot tub. I was accompanied by a woman from my synagogue who helped me with the requisite prayers. After submerging, I recited a prayer thanking God for His commandments, including the requirement to immerse oneself in the mikvah. Then I said a second prayer called the Shehecheyanu, a short blessing that thanks God for bringing us new opportunities. I went into the water Catholic but emerged a Jewish woman, with a new Hebrew name as well.

My parents and my brother are not particularly religious, and I received only well wishes when I told them I was converting. Now when I go home to visit and bring my travel menorahs—or drive half an hour from their house to H-E-B Plus to buy challah, the special braided bread that Jews eat during Friday night dinners (and which makes the best French toast on Saturday mornings, if you ask me)—my parents are only surprised to hear that Corpus Christi has a large enough Jewish population that H-E-B would carry the bread in the first place.

There aren’t many Jews in Texas, and we lost a bright star with the passing of Kinky Friedman last year. There are an estimated 220,000 Jews out of a total population of 31 million Texans. Of the 3.5 million people who live in South Texas, less than 25,000 identify as Jewish, or 0.7% of the population. In Corpus Christi, less than 3,000 people call themselves Jewish. It’s easy to walk around a city named for the body of Christ and feel like you’re the only one like you for a hundred miles.

I know the local Jewish community usually lights a giant menorah by the bayfront and serves latkes and sufganiyot, or jelly donuts, for Hanukkah. This year the public lighting falls on Sunday, Dec. 29—the fifth night of Hanukkah. Hanukkah is not a major holiday in the Jewish faith, falling well behind Yom Kippur and Passover in terms of its religious significance. There are no special synagogue services scheduled other than the weekly Friday night and Saturday morning services that mark the Sabbath. So, my Hanukkah celebration will have to take place at home, at least for the first few days.

Hanukkah is not “Jewish Christmas,” as some people believe. It’s not a religious holiday at all. Actually, it commemorates the military victory of the Maccabees over the Greek Assyrians and the rededication of the Holy Temple of Jerusalem in the second century B.C.E. The story of the miracle of the lamp oil lasting eight days was added later, and most modern-day Hanukkah celebrations focus on food, family, and togetherness. Still, there is symbolism in the candles and how they bring light and warmth into the house during the darkest part of the winter (at least in the Northern Hemisphere). I think there’s a tendency in the United States to equate Hanukkah with Christmas because they occur around the same time of year and both involve gift-giving, but the two holidays really have nothing in common. My husband, who grew up in South Africa, didn’t ever receive gifts on Hanukkah. Eight days of presents may have more to do with retailers trying to move products than with tradition.

The second night of Hanukkah proceeds much the same as the first: candles, prayers, food. But on the third night, my family and I visit Congregation Beth Israel on the city’s Southside, a bright and cheery temple born of the merging of two prior congregations, Temple Beth El and B’nai Israel Synagogue. Now under the direction of a new rabbi, Gabrielle Cohn, CBI seeks to provide a home to all Jews in the Coastal Bend, regardless of their level of observance. CBI also promotes and preserves the Jewish culture through events like the annual Jewish Food Festival, a beloved Corpus Christi tradition held in November for 40 years.

During the service, Rabbi Cohn speaks about the significance of the Hanukkah candles, and what it means, spiritually and practically, to bring light into dark times. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” She shares these words from Martin Luther King Jr., emphasizing what I love best about Hanukkah—a reminder that not only can we be a source of light for others, but we must be one. It’s why we’re here.

We are warmly welcomed by everyone and are treated to an oneg, or light meal, after the service, where my kids yet again eat way too many sweets and I have a slice of the best German chocolate cake I can remember eating. We drive home in the dark, passing dozens of homes with their Christmas lights still twinkling, and I think for maybe the 600th time in 2024 that we all have so much in common. We all want so many of the same things for ourselves, our children, our planet. Why, then, does it feel more and more like we’re all standing on little islands built of our own prejudices, slowly drifting apart, past the point of ever again being able to brush the fingertips of another person?

On Sunday night we arrive a little early for the menorah lighting, which is held at Water’s Edge Park overlooking Corpus Christi Bay, just steps away from H-E-B’s 66-foot Christmas tree. We pose for photos in front of the tree, still brightly lit and towering in stately verdure. After a few moments, we hear police sirens and, behind them, a thudding bass line. Then a parade of cars appears, with giant menorahs strapped precariously to their roofs, reminding me of the Grinch’s dog, Max, and his hastily applied reindeer horn. The car parade makes its way down Ocean Drive to the park, blasting Israeli Hanukkah songs—pop lyrics over belly-dance beats—and amping up the small crowd, most of whom are children. A hook and ladder truck had arrived at the park a few minutes before and extended its tallest cherry picker, getting ready to drop gelt, or chocolate coins, for the children. Now that the car parade has arrived, the candy is about to take flight.

Corpus Christi’s big menorah lighting is produced by Chabad, an international philanthropic organization of Hasidic Jews dedicated to providing support to anyone who identifies as Jewish. I have seen Chabad offices in Cancún, Lisbon, and Palm Springs, California. They are everywhere, making sure Jews living or visiting anywhere on Earth have access to synagogue services, kosher food, and guidance through birth, death, marriage, or natural disasters. They also conduct public outreach in a world that is again growing increasingly hostile toward Jews.

It strikes me, watching the cars drive through the city, displaying their Jewishness loud and proud, that this celebration serves a number of purposes. Some are positive, but others stem from a darker place. It’s fun for the kids, and it brings together Corpus Christi’s small Jewish community. But I also think that, as documented cases of antisemitism rise in the United States and abroad, Chabad puts on these big, public Hanukkah displays to show their non-Jewish neighbors that they not only exist, but are friendly and open and generous and not any of the negative stereotypes that have dogged Jews for millennia. Handing out free latkes and donuts seems like a small act, but the goodwill it generates may be important when many Americans get their news primarily from social media outlets that are increasingly abdicating any responsibility for fact-checking and curbing hate speech.

The sun has set, the cars are all parked, and it is finally time for Rabbi Naftoli Schmukler, codirector of Chabad Coastal Bend, to say a few words and light the gas lamps atop the big metal menorah that could withstand even the harshest Gulf wind. “We are all children of Noah,” he says. “We’re all connected. And our purpose on Earth is to illuminate the world with goodness and kindness.” He lights the shamash, or worker candle, which he uses to light the other candles in the menorah. As the flame catches and one fire becomes two, three, four, five, I think about how kindness can spread in the same way. One good deed inspires another and another, rekindling faith and love among friends, neighbors, family members, and strangers in a lonely and fractured world where it’s easy to ignore one another and sink into the isolation of a screen.

We begin the first prayer. “Baruch atah Adonai … .” Blessed are You, God, who makes us holy through Your commandments. Judaism teaches that God created people so we would make the Earth a holier place through our actions, which are guided by God’s commandments. Fun fact: Christians have 10 commandments, but Jews have 613. These laws govern worship (“Know there is a God,” Exodus 20:2); food (“Distinguish which winged insects may be eaten,” Leviticus 11:21); contractual disputes (“A man cannot remarry his divorced wife,” Deuteronomy 24:4); building codes (“Make a guardrail around flat roofs,” Deuteronomy 22:8); and how to live a virtuous life (“Don’t break oaths or vows,” Numbers 30:3).

I take the concept of making the world a more sacred place seriously. It is the central organizing principle of my life and guides my actions in obvious ways like volunteering. There are less obvious ways, too, like planting native flowers to bring bees and butterflies back to my garden or disciplining my children when they’re rude to each other so they grow up to speak with kindness and respect. Every year, when I light my Hanukkah candles, I think about making the world sacred, one candle at a time, each small thing lighting another small thing until the darkness isn’t dark anymore, until there’s light everywhere.

When the prayers are finished, a firefighter pops his head out from inside the cherry picker and asks the children if they are ready for candy. Everyone shrieks, Yes, and Rabbi Schmukler begins a countdown. Dozens of tiny hands reach out in the darkness. Three, two, one. Handful after handful of chocolate coins drop from the sky like little miracles. I don’t see well in the dark, so I rake my hands through the dry winter grass and pick up stacks of coins that I give to any small child toddling past. There are so many coins. They never stop falling. Soon, they are accompanied by little plastic figures attached to nylon parachutes drifting gracefully to the ground as though floating on clouds. The children run all around, hands outstretched.

I imagine being Jewish in Corpus Christi must feel lonely. Maybe this loneliness inspires stronger ties within the community, or maybe it’s just lonely. It’s impossible for me to say. But I was really moved by my Hanukkah in South Texas, and I felt an abundance of the things that everyone wants to feel during the holiday season: warmth, connection, kindness, light.

We returned to our home in Massachusetts on New Year’s Eve and missed lighting the candles that night because we were flying somewhere over Tennessee at sundown. As I watched the ball drop over Times Square, my wish for 2025 was the same as it was every year: peace throughout the land, an end to hate, a better future for our children. A naive wish perhaps, but a sincere one. When we lit the eighth-night candles on Jan. 1, back in our quiet home with everyone preparing for work and school the next day, I felt fortunate we’d been able to share the holiday across two states, two congregations, two calendar years.

I converted to Judaism to gain answers to questions, or at least to be able to ask better questions. And I think I have a really good one: If we agree the world is divided, as most of us do, then what will we do, each of us, to slowly bring it back together?

My candle is lit, waiting to light yours. Come close. I’m ready.