In my home, there was nothing unusual that on the last snowy night of Hanukkah in December 1963, after we had lit all the candles on the menorah, one of Hanukkah gifts was a Christmas album- “Christmas With the Chipmunks.”

Christmas was only one week away, and as usual, my mother was hosting a big Christmas/ birthday party for my paternal grandfather. Papa Moishe, like that other Jewish boychik, was born on December 25th.

Papa was a pawnbroker, and he always came bearing Christmas gifts straight from the pawnshop, which could be filled with unclaimed merchandise. That year, he gifted us a large, bulky RCA reel-to-reel tape recorder.

My older brother and I spent hours trying to recreate the high-pitched sounds of those three singing anthropomorphic chipmunk brothers, recording our voices at different speeds.  We were never very successful replicating Alvin, Simon, or Theodore, but every Christmas for the next few years, the album would be trotted out for the party, playing it on our Magnavox Hi-Fi.

Yet another Christmas gift from my Pawnshop Santa.

A Merry Christmas to All