"Christmas is relentless. It's around the clock. I sit with my little ones in front of the TV screen,..." — Sayed Kashua

The truth is, I never travel without cash. I always take a few tens with me in case of an emergency. There's never been an emergency, and in time, I realized that Americans don't want to touch customers' dirty bills. They also don't want to touch your credit card: you have to put it through the machine yourself, with your own fingers.

Thanksgiving is the only day of the year when most of the stores here are closed during the day and reopen after midnight. Even restaurants shut down for the holiday, except for the fast-food chains.

I'm always sad when Dad doesn't like my columns. He waits for them every week and usually likes them, in which case he doesn't say a word - it's only if he's critical that he bothers to call.

Israeli independence - what we Arabs call al-Naqba, 'The Catastrophe' - it created Palestinian identity more than anything else.