#203 Chanukah approaches

Chanukah is coming up very quickly this year. It starts on December 1st, which is really early. In my family we customarily give one gift each night for a total of eight gifts. So my husband and I are scrambling to come up with gifts for the boys. I think we may have finally gotten it figured out, but it’s been making me think of Chanukahs past.




There is, of course, the infamous Chanukah when I got Eric the purple yarmulke. I wrote about that here. There was also the year my parents had the audacity to get me a book. It was a book I ultimately loved, but I did not feel that a book was an appropriate Chanukah gift and threw a fit. Sorry Mom and Dad. I’m feeling better and better all the time about this baby not being a girl…..



Eric and I used to love it when my parents would get us each a box of sugar cereal, something usually never found in our house.



My parents would place our gifts, each in our own distinct Chanukah paper, on the radiator in the dining room and Eric and I would go in and stare at them. The anticipation was amazing. Every night when my dad got home from work we would light the menorah and then choose which present to open. Such a choice! Did we choose the biggest or save that for last? Did we choose the ones which looked similar in case we got the same thing? Oh how we savored that choice.



I remember one year Eric and I went looking for our gifts before they were wrapped. And we found them. And it wasn’t nearly the same. It was the last time we ever did that.



Our Chanukahs lately have been fragmented by travel and other issues. I’m happy that it’s early this year so we will be at home for the whole thing and my kids can have some of the excitement and magic that Eric and I did. Even if it does mean I have to prepare before Thanksgiving.



We also celebrate Christmas with my in-laws every year and it’s easy for that to overshadow our much more subtle celebration of Chanukah. Hopefully this year, when they are completely separate, my boys will relish their holiday as much as their dad’s.