I have a confession to make. When seasonal catalogues beginning arriving in the mail I can’t resist looking inside … I just love those October catalogues embellished with autumn leaves and pumpkins; November catalogues adorned with cozy sweaters and candlelit turkey dinners; and December catalogues bedecked with evergreen trees ornamented with pretty little bulbs and lights. Although I have been frum for about twenty-five years something about this time of year in all of its seasonal glory stirs up a place deep inside of me causing me to long for days gone by. Doesn’t sound very Jewish does it?

Well that’s because growing up I wasn’t very Jewish. I lived in a small New England town across the street from a farm. You could see the Connecticut River from our back door. In October we carved pumpkins and went trick-or-treating. In November we learned about the pilgrims and ate turkey and in December we decorated a tree. My best friend was a nice churchgoing little girl who lived across the street. When my parents uprooted our family from that charming rural town in Connecticut to the endless sprawling suburbs of Los Angeles I was traumatized.

From that time forward I’d dreamed of returning to New England where I would make a home of my own and raise a family. Over the years thanks to my very active imagination and propensity to romanticize just about everything my dream became a picture of perfection: a charming white clapboard house surrounded by beautiful countryside that changed with the seasons; a wonderful safe haven for my children.

As they say man plans and G-d laughs. I married a man from Los Angeles who had no desire to move away from sunny Southern California. Shortly thereafter we miraculously embraced traditional Judaism and that changed everything. Over the years my dream of a simple quiet country life was overshadowed by the realities of being frum (which was anything but simple and quiet). Overshadowed but not nullified.

Privately I still lamented: Why must we put up with daily onslaughts of traffic smog offensive billboards crime and noise when a cleaner more peaceful and aesthetically pleasing environment was available? Why oh why couldn’t we move to the bucolic hills of northeastern Connecticut where for one-third of the price we pay in Los Angeles we could be living in a home twice the size?

To read the rest of this story please buy this issue of Mishpacha or sign up for a weekly subscription.