My parents were born in this country, so they were first-generation American parents. My grandfather was born in 1984, in Riga, Latvia.

I remember on the basic holidays with parades, there would be the Polish girls in their white embroidered dresses, and it would be the Chelsea High Band...

We did the seders. We did Hanukah. We did Purim. We did all the major events. But my grandfather—being Orthodox didn’t matter—he loved Christmas.

I was brought up to be very accepting of everybody and intrigued by everyone’s differences.

My father and I loved sports together. We loved opera together. We would go to the opera; we would go to sports.

We went up to—Columbus Day, we celebrated. We celebrated everything. We even brought my grandparents to all the things that we celebrated.