Fun fact: My birthday was supposed to be on Dec. 31, 1998 – the kind of baby who arrives just in time for countdowns and tax deductions. Instead, I decided to pop out a week early on Christmas Eve. Sorry, Mom.

Here’s the twist: My parents raised me Jewish, so from the beginning, my life has been one long holiday identity crisis.

Growing up, I would jokingly call myself the “nightmare before Christmas,” and since my birthday was so close together with Hanukkah and Christmas, I would say that I should get triple the gifts. Of course, that never happened. I quickly learned that kids whose birthdays were in December get the dreaded “combined gift,” and Jewish kids get the “eight nights of something small.” I fell somewhere in between: half gelt, half stocking stuffers and one birthday present trapped somewhere in the middle.

My family was what I’d now call “progressively interfaith.” My dad’s side of the family celebrated Hanukkah, while my mom’s side did Christmas. So one night, I’d be lighting the menorah, and the next morning I’d wake up to a house that smelled like garland and gingerbread cookies. It was festive, confusing and honestly, a little cute in hindsight.

While my peers spent their Sundays at church, I spent every High Holiday and every third Friday of the month at temple. That routine ended after my rabbi went blind, which unintentionally led our family out of regular Jewish practice and added yet another strange chapter to my December identity. Was Christmas “mine?” Was Hanukkah? My birthday? I never quite knew where I fit in and everyone else seemed to have a clearer script to follow.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world treated my Christmas Eve birthday like a footnote to something much bigger. Friends were traveling and restaurants were fully booked. Everyone was occupied with their own holiday traditions. People would say “Merry Christmas!” and “Happy Birthday!” in the same breath, as if my birthday was a festive add-on to a much louder holiday.

And yet, despite the chaos, I wouldn’t trade any of it.

When you’re a Jewish kid whose birthday falls on Christmas Eve, you learn early on that identity isn’t a one-size-fits-all type of thing. It overlaps. It contradicts itself. It spills into places it doesn’t belong. You learn that your traditions don’t have to match with everybody else’s. Your identity is also separate from everybody else’s. Your timing also doesn’t have to match anyone else’s.

You also learn that meaning doesn’t come from fitting perfectly into a specific holiday box – whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, etcetera – but rather from the people who make space for you in the middle of winter chaos. It comes from the relatives who show up with cinnamon rolls and coffee even though they’ve spent the previous night wrapping eight nights’ worth of presents. From the friends who remember your birthday even though their flight is tomorrow at 7 a.m. From the odd, mismatched rituals that eventually become your family’s version of normal.

Granted, Christmas Eve babies often feel overshadowed by Santa, Jesus and holiday travel schedules. If one were in my place, Jewish Christmas Eve babies feel overshadowed and out of place. But somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing it as a flaw and started seeing it as something I could call my own.

Now, as my 27th birthday approaches, I don’t think about being overshadowed. I think about the strange, blended, chaotic little world I grew up in – a world where dreidels lived next to snowmen and the menorah glowed a day early because, well, so did I.

And honestly, there’s something kind of magical about being born at a time when the whole world is already lit up.