A Hanukkah Survey

This survey is going around the Jewish professional blogs and so I thought I'd share it with you.

One menorah, or several?

We own 9 menorahs (thanks to the Jewish preschool - we have 6 homemade ones). We only use 3 though on each night of Hanukkah - one for the family and the kids each have one.

Do you buy your children gifts for every night of Chanukah?

They get a gift from us for 6 nights. The other two nights they receive gifts from the grandparents.

Do you and your spouse/partner or any other adults in your life exchange gifts?

We exchange with kids and adults alike.

Special family chanukah traditions?

We invite our Jewish neighbors and neighbors of other faiths to our house to celebrate Hanukkah complete with pizza, latkes, munchkins, menorah lighting and dreidel. We also attend the synagogue Hanukkah events and spend time with each of our families during the week.

Latkes or sufganiyot? If latkes, sour cream or applesauce?

How is this for boring - Weight Watchers latkes with low fat sour cream or applesauce for me. Everyone else gets the real thing!

Favorite chanukah book?

Lemony Snicket's The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming. :)

Do you actually play dreidl? If so, what do you use for counters?

Yes, we play dreidel and we use m&ms or pennies.

What relationship, if any, do you have with Christmas and all things Christmas-y?

Chinese food and movies, of course! Actually, my favorite songs this time of year are Bruce Springsteen's rendition of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. I also like Winter Wonderland and Let it Snow. If our friends invite us over for egg nog, we are happy to take part.

A Holiday Moment I'll Never Forget

It isn't even officially the holiday season, yet decorations are everywhere and the Salvation Army has taken its post outside of the doors of the mall.

Tonight, I took my children to the mall and we walked over to the cosmetic counter. A very nice young woman helped me with my selections and while she was trying it on me - she spoke to my kids.

"So, are you excited for Christmas?" she asked. I waited. Each year the kids have stayed silent not knowing what to say or how to react. They've been embarassed and have looked at me for assistance. This year - I just waited to see what happened.

My son answered, "We are Hanukkah not Christmas."

Not missing a beat the woman started to talk to both of them about how lucky they were that Hanukkah comes early this year and that they get 12 days of presents while she only gets one.

My daughter politely informs her that they only get 8 days of presents and affirms that they are indeed excited about it with a big grin on her face.

Here comes the best part. I was already proud of the fact that my kids said it out loud and with pride - "We celebrate Hanukkah." But then something else happened.

When I went to pay for my purchases, the saleswoman turned to them and wished them a Happy Hanukkah. My daughter turned around and wished her a Merry Christmas. And I just absorbed the moment where each person respected each other's holiday, recognized their differences and wished them a meaningful holiday greeting.

I know that there is a lot of talk about how "Happy Holidays" is too generic and impersonal to say or how salespeople shouldn't assume that everyone celebrates Christmas. This argument never really mattered to me until I witnessed this great moment when people of different faiths and traditions came together in mutual respect, much excitement, and pure joy.

I could not have been more proud of our family. It is truly a holiday moment I will not forget.

Jewish Cooking for the Clueless

IT'S HERE! My new cookbook - Jewish Cooking Boot Camp - came in the mail last week. I know that this cookbook was made for me - especially when there is an article on page 7 titled "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Kitchen Injuries."

I'd like to add a new segment to the cookbook from the Clueless Cook (a.k.a. yours truly). I call it - Reasons to read the recipe BEFORE you start to cook.

Reason #1 - By reading the entire list of ingredients, you can make sure that you have each item in your kitchen. If you don't follow this philosophy, you will likely annoy your spouse when you send him or her out to the store to retrieve the missing (and usually hard to find) ingredient.

Reason #2 - Read the recipe again to make sure that you have all of the kitchen equipment you need. This would have come in handy before I was in the middle of making cupcakes with the kids from scratch without a sifter.

Reason #3
Read the amount that you need of each ingredient prior to putting it in the bowl. Otherwise, you may wind up quadrupling the one ingredient that you didn't read while using the exact measurements of the ingredients that you did read. Yes, I admit that I did this. I overloaded on the tomato sauce and put in the exact ingredients while making a mango sauce for my tilapia.

One more cooking tip for clueless cooks out there (are there any out there besides me?), buy 2 of everything so that when you mess it up - you have everything you need to start all over again!

Yeah, the brisket I plan to make for the High Holidays should make for a very interesting story. Wish me luck and stay tuned!

My Lists

I'm back! Does September feel like a big freight train coming down the tracks and there is nothing we can do to stop it? The last time I blogged was in January (sorry about that). In January, I was dreaming about many things that I was looking forward to over the summer.

• Family vacation to DisneyWorld (check)
• Billy Joel/Elton John Concert (check)
• The Producers at the Walnut (check)
• Phillies games (check - 2 down & 1 to go)
• Neighborhood BBQs (check)

I still have a few things left on my summer to do list, but my fall list is getting longer by the minute.

• Back to School shopping
• Back to School nights
• Soccer practice
• Soccer games
• Sunday School
• Hebrew School (new for us this year)
• High Holidays
• High School Reunion (20th in November)

It's time to pull the train into the station and get some perspective on this. So, I took out one of my favorite books: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (and It's All Small Stuff). And I made a new list to deal with some of my stress

• Be aware of the snowball effect - meaning if I wake up in the middle of the night thinking of one thing and it turns into 5 more things - get a grip and go back to sleep.
• Live in the Present Moment - practice living in the here and now and less on worrying about the past and future
• Allow Myself to be Bored - WHAT! This one is the hardest for me. But the book says that if I allow myself to be bored - even for a short time - boredom will be replaced with peaceful feelings. Okay - I'll give it a shot! :)
• Cut Myself Some Slack - Okay, sounds good. I know I'm not perfect and not everything on my to do list will get done. The important things will be addressed and the rest can wait for another day.

If you have this book hidden away in a closet and you haven't picked it up in a while. Maybe it is a good time to do so - before you see the freight train coming your way.