Actually, when I wrote the titles, I realized that when I think of the Holidays, I think of our High Holidays of Rosh Hashannah (our Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (our day of atonement).
However, when I refer to them here, I refer to the Happy Hannukwanistmas and new year. Yes, finally, the “holidays” of Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year’s are done! My son is back in school and life is finally getting back to normal.
Watching the Christmas season go by is always exhausting, and we don’t even celebrate it! During Hanukkah, we shouldn’t have to worry about presents. Instead, you may give gelt (money) or chocolate coins. However, due to the Americanization of Christmas, Hanukkah sort of got wrapped up in the commercialization part of it all. That can get expensive for eight days!
Most of the time Hanukkah is finished way before Christmas arrives. So for me, it seems like an even longer time for holidays. Then my mom always feels the need to do something for Christmas because there is nothing else to do. Everything shuts down. I wish they had a place open just for us!
For Christmas Eve, we continued our yearly tradition of going out for Chinese food. We can always count on the local Chinese restaurants to be open. This is actually a Jewish tradition all over the states, though I’m not sure why.
Then on Christmas my mom feels the need to give her grandkids a gift or two. Now when I was growing up, I never got anything for Christmas (except for exchanges with friends). So this is a new tradition for her. We go over to her house so she can cook (hey nothings open and she’s a great cook!) and spend some nice family time together. Since we don’t want to call them Christmas gifts, we call them “Because Bubbie wants to give you something today” gifts. We figured it fit the mood better and didn’t have any religious meaning. For those of you who don’t k now Yiddish, Bubbie is Grandma and Zaddie is Grandpa.
Now we get a whole year before we have to do it all over again!