When I was in kindergarten, I attended a school in a predominantly Christian neighborhood. We were studying the concept of less vs. more, and the teacher asked if any of us had an example of something “less” in the classroom. I raised my hand and said, “There are less Jews in the classroom.”

“Okay,” the teacher said. “All of the Jews, stand up.”

All three Jews, including myself, stood up in the circle. One girl, a non-Jew who was “Teacher for A Day,” remained standing, until she was kindly asked by the teacher to sit.

This sort of ostracizing minimized greatly as I changed to a school in a mostly Jewish community in Westchester, as I went to Jewish sleepaway camp during my preteen years and ultimately as I found myself at Binghamton University.

While in the grand scheme of the world I am a minority, I often forget that there are in fact “less Jews” solely based on my current location.

That is, until Christmas time. I am a sucker for the holiday season — I love the Christmas feeling. The second the Starbucks cups turn red, my senses start lusting voraciously for the smell of pine trees and gingerbread. Advertisements for seasonal lattes, lights on the streets and candy canes on prominent display in Wegmans evoke a feeling of warmth, joy and — well, hunger. I associate Christmas with a season, not the birth of Christ, but despite my joyous immersion in a world of red and green, I sometimes cannot help but long for more than one menorah in some window.

I get it. I can’t ask for Hanukkah to be the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, and I can’t encourage the entire Jewish community to reproduce in exponential numbers via regeneration or something in order to amass the Hanukkah lights to the numbers of those of Christmas. I can’t get Manischewitz to make more boxes of gelt than will sell, and I can’t get the radio to play Adam Sandler’s “The Hanukkah Song” anymore because, as nice as it was to hear that celebrities also spin dreidels, it also sort of singled us Jews out; not to mention “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is catchier.

So I understand that my kindergarten classroom was just a microcosm of the real world — that there are, indeed, “less Jews” — but I love to share in the world’s Christmas spirit, so why won’t they share my Hanukkah joy? There’s no need for rampant radio ditties or loud decoration. Hanukkah is not really about that. It’s just about gathering around as a family and lighting candles, after indulging in some severely fried potatoes and chocolate.

And I think we all can find a little comfort and joy in that.