Let me tell you, my young friends, holiday gatherings used to be different. There was a time when the festive table was free of conspiracy theories, pronoun complaints, and sports talk. There was a time when, after the feast was done, no one wiped their mouth on their sleeve, pushed back from the table, and waddled over to the sofa to watch football. [Beat]

In those days, after dinner a wagon train of family stories rolled through the parlor, each tale more enchanting than the last. As logs crackled in the fireplace, stories of odd uncles and heroic grandmas, of legendary ancestors and possibly royal relatives filled the room like sweet-smelling smoke. And they were all, or nearly all, a pack of monstrous lies.

Picture the disillusionment I suffered when, in my early twenties, I began to learn the truth about my family. Here's what you need to know. My mother Joan was an only child, and she was, on the whole, a truthful person, so I’m really talking about the large, loud, lovable immigrant family she acquired when she married my dad, Tom Naff.

His father, Faris al-Naaf, came to America in 1895 from what we now call Lebanon. When he set sail, it was merely a province in the Ottoman Empire. After peddling for year a bit of money by peddling door-to-door, he returned to Lebanon, married my grandmother, Yamna, had two daughters, and then emigrated once again, to Detroit, where he opened a grocery. Faris and Yamna ran the store and raised five children, the youngest being my dad. That much is true. But here’s some of what I heard at holiday gatherings.

• Grandpa Faris was the namesake of his uncle, a great and noble horseback warrior. 1
• Grandma Yamna smuggled her Old World yogurt into this country by drying it in a hankie and then reconstituting it with New World milk.
• Bootleg dairy was just the beginning. Faris and Yamna were afraid that little Wedad, who had caught a cold on the ship, would be turned back at Ellis Island, so they rolled her up in a Persian carpet and smuggled her into America.
• And, get this. My Aunt Alixa, according to family lore, once went out on a date with Danny Thomas! Yes, that Danny Thomas: TV star, singer, nightclub comedian, and founder of Saint Jude’s Hospital.

Now, could anyone possibly believe that Alixa Naff, a Lebanese grocery clerk in Detroit, went out on a date with Danny Thomas? They might as well have told me she also went out clubbing with Marilyn Monroe or riding on the back of James Dean’s motorcycle.

But as a child, I cherished and believed all these fireside yarns. When I grew into manhood, I shed many childhood things: spiderman pajamas, light sabers, and belief in the family tales.

They contained trace elements of truth, but I came to realize that they were largely nonsense. It’s true that my grandfather’s name, which I also bear, in Arabic connotes great horsemanship, but he was no warrior, and so far as I can tell neither were any of his ancestors.

It’s true that in 1920, my Aunt Wedad came to America through Ellis Island, and it’s true that her parents were concerned about the cold she’d caught on the voyage. But if they’d had a Persian carpet, they wouldn’t have rolled her up in it -- they’d have flown her in on it!

As for the yogurt -- well, that one might be true. For sure, my aunts jealously guarded the family labni culture -- and by culture I mean the stuff you need to start a batch of yogurt. It was truly delicious.

Today, infiltrating yogurt from the Middle East, that would be bioterrorism, right? But back then? Maybe it happened that way.

When it came to the Danny Thomas story, though, no way. I felt sure the whole thing was romantic moonshine. Look, my Aunt Alixa was a well built woman, but she could be a hellcat. Not only did she remain single all her life, but she drove most of her friends and nearly all her family away by picking ferocious fights with them. At my college graduation, for example, she got into a blistering argument with my dad, threw down a stack of books, and stormed off. My parents never really forgave her. Me, I was kind of amused.

I knew, better than most, the strength of character it took to be Alixa Naff, a woman who rejected the roles her parents, her culture, and her times demanded of her. She traveled all over Europe, the Middle East, and America in a VW bug, gathering immigrant tales. She earned a doctorate and became the founder of the Smithsonian’s Arab American archive.

Eventually, though, old age crept up on her. Having fought one fight too many with my dad, her siblings, my siblings, and pretty much all of my cousins, she turned to me to take care of her affairs. I naturally said yes, and felt honored by the trust. After all, she’d been kind to me when I was a kid, and she needed an ally in her old age.

When she died in 2013, I organized a family gathering to celebrate her life. Elders from all over crowded into my parents’ home. It was a noisy affair, as partly deaf nonagenarians competed to make themselves heard. Amid the din, one story caught my ear. “Remember,” my dad’s cousin Lorice shouted, “when Alixa went out on a date with Danny Thomas?” “What?” I yelled. “Yes,” she hollered, “His family was from Lebanon, right? We knew them all growing up. Well, Danny was back in Detroit visiting his little brother and they went out on a date to some night clubs.” “You’re telling me that Alixa had a fling with Danny Thomas?” “Well, not with him. With his brother. 3 Danny was dating some gorgeous blonde.” “Hmm. So, how’s that ‘on a date with Danny Thomas?’” “They all rode in the same car, a great big convertible. Oh, you should have seen it!”

And there you have it: a double date, with Danny Thomas … 's kid brother. So remember, young people, if the electricity fails at holiday time and your elders start telling tales, listen up … but be sure to grab a salt-shaker off the diningroom table. You may well need a grain or two before the night is done.

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