Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the Brooklyn Papers (brooklynpapers.com):

Monday night, Hepcat, Smartmom, and OSFO bought a Christmas tree from the gentle Canadian man, who sell trees in front of the CVS drugstore.

“The trees are from Nova Scotia,” the man told them. “But I live in Montreal.”

For seven years, he has been coming to Brooklyn, where he lives in a truck and sells trees 24/7 until Christmas Day, when he goes back home.

Smartmom felt funny picking out a tree. Growing up in a secular Jewish family on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, her family did celebrate Christmas — but a Christmas tree? That was crossing the line.

Sure, they thumb-tacked their red felt stockings to the non-working fireplace and left notes for Santa Claus. Her parents decorated the house with foil-covered paper bells and velvet ribbons. And Christmas morning was a gift fest — something she and her equally Jewish twin sister Diaper Diva looked forward to all year.

Smartmom’s romance with Christmas temporarily ended during college when she fell in with a band of Socialist Zionists with anarchist leanings. They rallied for a Palestinian state and planned to spend their lives on a kibbutz named Gezer, which means carrot in Hebrew.

Her Jewish consciousness was raised, thanks to friends who lived in a kosher house off-campus and lit Hanukkah candles to celebrate the Maccabean miracle.

Smartmom’s romance with Hanukkah ended years later when she and Hepcat were dating and he invited her to experience Christmas Hepcat-style. The family home in northern California was decorated top to bottom with Mexican creches, Advent calendars and a live tree festooned with handmade ornaments and glass balls from the 1950s.

On Christmas morning, Smartmom felt like she’d died and went to shiksa heaven. What magic, what fun — and what fresh baked cinnamon buns! Dressed in bathrobes and slippers, the adults watched as Hepcat’s nieces reveled in the delights under the tree.

After they were married, Hepcat and Smartmom never missed a Christmas in California. Soon they had Teen Spirit with them, who loved sitting by a roaring fire on Christmas morning as he and his cousins explored their voluptuous Christmas stockings.

However, the year Smartmom was seven-months pregnant with OSFO, the family didn’t go to California because her obstetrician told her not to fly.

She obeyed. But Hepcat was mighty cranky about it as it was the first time he’d ever missed Christmas with his family. Worse, Smartmom had no idea how to do Christmas in New York. As far as she was concerned, a New York Christmas was presents in the morning, a movie, and dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

If only for her beloved Hepcat, she had to figure out how to celebrate his special holiday 3,000 miles away from his home.

At the last minute, they decided to buy a tree, but they didn’t have any ornaments. They bought colorful lights and hung Teen Spirit’s action figures on the branches. On Christmas Eve, they hung their socks on the windows in the living room.

Smartmom spent too much time worrying that Hepcat and Teen Spirit would be disappointed. And in a way they were. Their Brooklyn Christmas seemed a cheap imitation of the one in California. They really hadn’t bothered to infuse it with their own special style.

Hepcat was relieved to return to California the next year, with baby OSFO in the Bjorn, and vowed never to spend Christmas in New York again.

Until last year.

Smartmom decided that she was sick and tired of spending every Christmas out in California. Gingerly, she brought it up with her man while he was cooking dinner.

“Well, I guess it’ll just be me, Teen Spirit and OSFO,” Hepcat said somewhat defensively. Smartmom was aghast that he planned to split up the family during the holidays, but she decided, uncharacteristically, to take a wait-and-see approach.

Teen Spirit came in from dining room, where he’d obviously been overhearing the delicate discussion.

“Dad, I wouldn’t mind spending Christmas in Brooklyn,” he said.

Hepcat had that stoic look on his face that usually indicates that he is in a great deal of pain.

“Well, I guess it’ll just be me and OSFO,” he said. Now he had that pleased-as-punch expression obviously confident that he could rely on his little girl to stick by him.

“No way!” OSFO screamed from the dining room. “I’m not spending Christmas without Mom and Teen Spirit.” At that, Hepcat looked dispirited.

“Well, I guess I’ll go out alone.”

The next morning at breakfast, Hepcat told them he wasn’t going to California for Christmas — that he’d never want to be without his family on that day. Group hug. Or at least that’s what they probably should have done.

For Smartmom, this was major turning point in their long marriage.

For the first time, Hepcat seemed to recognize that it was important to invent holiday traditions with his family in Brooklyn.

Last year, instead of trying to recreate a California Christmas in Brooklyn, they worked hard to make it their own.

On Christmas Day, which was also Hanukkah, they opened presents before going over to Diaper Diva’s, where they lit the menorah, ate lox and bagels with Ducky, Bro-in-Law, Groovy Grandma and their cousins. Afterwards, they went to see “King Kong” at the Pavilion.

After the movie, Smartmom was tempted to order from Szechuan Delight, but they had too much risotto left over from the previous night’s Christmas eve dinner.

To say they had it all ways at once would be an understatement. As a family they cobbled together a Christmas that was eclectic, eccentric and fun — just the way they like it.