The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story is a children's book written by Lemony Snicket and illustrated by Lisa Brown.

It encounters a string of flashing colored lights, which do not appreciate the latke's shrieks and wonder why it was thrown into a pan of boiling oil.

In 175 BCE, the latke explains, in order to study the Torah, Hebrews needed to hide in caves, and pretended to play with dreidels when Greek soldiers approached.

The candy cane equates this with Joseph and Mary hiding in the manger, but the latke insists that this is a totally different thing, and runs off screaming into the forest.

The tree begins to tell a funny story about pagan rituals when it is interrupted by a family searching the forest for a holiday necessity.