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It's Jack's third Christmas, but in a way, it's like it's his first.

Two yules ago, he was only six months old, and as a result, he didn't have a clue as to what was going on. We dressed him up in red and posed him on a bed of tinsel for his holiday photo and he chewed on a sparkly snowflake decoration that was surely made in China with lead-based glues and paints. He looked adorable in his miniature dress shirt and tie and was the hit of all the family get-togethers, and he really did get his two front teeth for Christmas.

Growing up, December 25th always followed a similar pattern. After sleeping in, we would go to my favourite Chinese restaurant on Eglinton, where all my friends and their families were also eating brunch. We would socialize, eat and then, en masse, head to the movies to see the latest blockbuster release. After, we would head home for dinner and family time. There were no chestnuts roasting on an open fire, no Santa Claus and no tree with tinsel. We celebrated Hanukah.

I’ve never been a really huge fan of Halloween. As a child, I liked the idea of getting candy, of course, but what kid doesn’t? Especially since we never really had candy, per se, in our house when I was growing up. Homemade baking was more likely to cover the sweets section of our family’s food groups than chocolate bars or lollipops, and even that wasn’t enough to make it a banner event. I think it stems back to when I was 5 and I asked to be a witch that year. My mother got me the hat and cape, and put makeup on my face.

C hristmas and the surrounding holiday season is always a good time for reflection, and seeing Junior play with a piece of wrapping paper while ignoring the gift inside makes me think about just how different this year is from last. Junior is now 18 months old, and has turned into a chatty and personable toddler. He likes to run, name body parts, eat "Berries!" and "Cheese!" and pretty much anything else. Most of his words are cutely mispronounced and always have exclamation points after them.

W ho in their right mind lets their child sit on a stranger’s lap?

I don’t know about other people who call themselves responsible parents, but I spend most of my waking hours trying to keep my child away from hairy strangers in fur-lined coats who sit on thrones in shopping mall food courts.

Before becoming a father, I never really gave much thought to family traditions, perhaps in part because the ones I grew up with sometimes appeared to be disconnected from the culture outside our home at the time. Since Oliver’s birth, however, Mimi and I have often talked about what aspects of our respective backgrounds we would like to pass on to him to give him a sense of his cultural heritage.