That Holiday Season

I have been trying to write a blog for weeks now. I was all busy writing a diatribe about the hateful people in the most recent election, but then the darn holiday season came around. Now I’m so busy being thankful and happy and delighted with the people around me that when I sit down to write I find that my outrage is all gone. Yes, I have just completely lost my “edge.” I guess I am just going to have to wait to tell you about the people I can’t abide. Don’t worry, though, I am sure that once January rolls around I will be in a bad mood again, and I’ll be able to finish that blog.

For now, though, I just love everyone and everything. I can’t help myself. It’s the Holiday Season, which is a diverse and wonderful time in our household. For one thing, we spend lots of time with our families during this time of year, which is always a good thing. It’s no secret that I love my family. On my “Top Ten Words” I used in my Facebook statuses in 2010, “Family” was Number One. This is a lucky thing, because you don’t actually get to choose your relatives, yet I wouldn’t give any one of them up for anything in the world. This was proved when I kept my ex-husband’s family after the divorce.

So, we always kick off the Holiday Season with Thanksgiving in New Jersey, and, really, where else would you want to spend it? We look forward to this all year. We spend the weekend at my in-laws. We very much enjoy spending time with them, and they always act really happy to have us, too. This year we had my son with us – he spends Thanksgiving with us in “even” years - and that made it even more special. The extended family gathers on Thanksgiving Day, this year hosted by my very gracious brother- and sister-in-law, where we engage in those most important holiday activities – lively conversation and good food. As we usually do, we went into New York City for a show the day after Thanksgiving. This also serves as our anniversary present to ourselves as we were married 7 years ago on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

This year Hanukkah began just a few days after we returned home after Thanksgiving. I would tell you that Hanukkah falls on different dates on the calendar each year, but that wouldn’t be exactly correct, as many a good Jewish person will point out to their hapless Gentile friends who are trying frantically to explain it, just to have some fun with them. Okay, I’m going to let Judaism 101, a helpful website, explain it to you…

A few years ago, I was in a synagogue, and I overheard one man ask another, "When  is Chanukkah this year?" The other man smiled slyly and replied, "Same as always: the 25th of Kislev”…..the date of Jewish holidays does not change from year to year. Holiday are celebrated on the same day of the Jewish calendar every year, but the Jewish year is not the same length as a solar year on the [Gregorian] calendar used by most of the western world, so the date shifts on the [Gregorian] calendar. ( http://www.jewfaq.org/calendar.htm )

All I know is that I check my Gregorian calendar each year to find out when Hanukkah falls, and my Jewish husband checks with me to find out when Hanukkah falls. Whenever it falls, it has become one of my favorite holidays – this “Festival of Lights” that celebrates the resources God gives us to get through the bad times. I love everything about it- its personal significance to me (as my husband proposed during our first Hanukkah together), the lighting of the candles, the presents, and, of course, the homemade latkes and apple sauce.

Our annual Christmas concert with the Pittsburgh Concert Chorale fell smack in the middle of Hanukkah this year. Always a highlight of the season for us, we would go sing our hearts out about the birth of Jesus and then come home and light the candles for Hanukkah. Somehow, it all seemed like the most natural thing in the world to me.

Now we are in the home stretch. Christmas is coming next week. Because I work in the Cranberry area, in the heart of its awe-inspiring business area, I am now able to slip out on my lunch hour to pick up pretty much whatever I need for the holidays. The Target in Cranberry even carries Hanukkah supplies. My Christmas shopping is all done, a week ahead of time. We plan to put up the tree on Monday when my son comes over for Family Night. Nothing like trimming the Christmas tree with family- and Sheldon Cooper and Barney Stinson- to put you in the mood for Christmas, that’s what I always say!

We went grocery shopping and bought three fishes and all the other “fixin’s” for my family’s annual Christmas Eve celebration. This is when we eat fish and pasta, exchange presents, and celebrate the birth of Jesus which is another story of God giving us what we need to get through this life. We are especially excited that we will be having dinner at our house this year, as it is our first holiday season in our new home.

As is our tradition, we will celebrate a Jewish Christmas on Christmas Day with Chinese food and a movie. With “Tangled” as our movie choice at a movie theater that happens to have an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet restaurant in the same parking lot, and the fact that my father will joining us this year, the day should be very Merry indeed.

Here’s hoping that you all are also enjoying the blessings of this holiday season.

Our Miraculous Season - Eight Nights and Seven Fishes

The first time I observed Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, was the year I started dating my husband. My husband explained that we would be exchanging eight small gifts, one to be opened each evening of the festival. Like stocking stuffers, I thought, only they didn’t have to be physically small enough to fit into the stocking.

On the eighth night my husband opened his last present from me. It was a day-to-day calendar on a topic I thought he might like. Then it was my turn. In the gift bag he handed to me was a book on planning an interfaith wedding ceremony, and a typewritten note. The note explained that the eighth day of Hanukkah, which celebrates the miracle of oil that burned for eight days when it should have lasted for one, coincided with the eighth month anniversary of the miracle of our love, and asked me if I would consent to be his wife. He then presented me with the engagement ring. For this Italian Catholic Gentile, the “miracle of Hanukkah” now had a very personal meaning.

Each year, my husband, son and I celebrate Hanukkah (or Chanukah if you prefer). Each evening, my husband and I light the candles of the hanukkiah, which is a special menorah used for Hanukkah, and my husband says a prayer in Hebrew blessing the lights and the occasion. We each open a present. My son comes over one day during the eight-day festival week to celebrate, and brings a small present for each of us. He is happy to accept eight small presents from us.

A few years ago, my son arrived for our Hanukkah celebration carrying a beautiful poinsettia as a gift for me. When my mother was still alive, I would bring her a poinsettia every year at Christmas. My son remembered that and felt that it was time for that tradition to continue. Now each year I receive a Christmas poinsettia from my son as a Hanukkah present. We also decorate the Christmas tree that day, after enjoying a traditional Hanukkah meal of homemade latkes (potato pancakes) with apple sauce and sour cream.

My family has always celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve, which is the Feast of the Seven Fishes, a tradition among the people of Southern Italy and Sicily, where my grandparents were born. These traditions probably have their origins in the observance of the Cena della Vigilia, the wait for the miraculous birth of Christ in which early Catholics fasted on Christmas Eve until after receiving communion at Midnight Mass. According to my family, Christmas Eve had at one time been a Fast Day, when Catholics had to abstain specifically from eating meat. So, we celebrated Christmas by eating all kinds of fish, and exchanging presents. Midnight Mass was also part of the tradition, one we chose not to follow. No one really knows why there are seven fishes, and different families choose different fish.

When I was growing up, we celebrated the holiday at my Aunt Connie’s house, with the entire extended family. There were actually seven fishes, including squid, eel, shrimp, baccala (i.e. dried salted cod), clams, anchovies in angel hair pasta, and most importantly, smelts.

Over the years, as the family grew, and the kids grew up, my immediate family started celebrating the holiday on its own. We trimmed the menu to the three fishes we actually liked, which were the anchovies (in pasta and on homemade pizza), shrimp and smelts. Eventually, lasagna replaced the pizza, which was later replaced by my sister’s much-loved and anticipated stuffed shells. Meat is now a part of the meal, along with the fish.

The first year my husband spent Christmas with my family was also the first Christmas after my mother passed away. My mother had always made the fried smelts for Christmas Eve, which to me, anyway, was the most important part of the meal. I agreed to take responsibility for the smelts, but the person who really stepped in to save the smelts was my husband. My husband is a trained chef with a degree from the Culinary Institute of America. He produced fried smelts the likes of which the family had never experienced. He cemented his place not just in the hearts of my family but in our Christmas celebration as well. He also participates in the annual Family Grab Bag- exchanging presents seems to be the great constant in all our traditions.

Since we celebrate Christmas Eve with my family, we do very little on Christmas Day. We just relax, try to recover from all the fish consumption, and enjoy our newly acquired presents. One year, “Dreamgirls” was opening at a local cineplex on Christmas Day, and we decided that it was the perfect time to see it. We decided that we might like to get a little dinner on the way home, and found that a gourmet Chinese restaurant that we liked in Squirrel Hill was open. And so another tradition was born – we now celebrate what my husband always jokingly told me was a Jewish Christmas- Chinese food and a movie. The merging of the traditions was complete!

It’s all about miracles, really- this season in which we celebrate our various religious and ethnic holidays. Whether it’s the miracle of one days’ worth of oil that lasted for eight when the Maccabees reclaimed their temple, or the miracle of the birth of Jesus Christ who was born to save humankind, it’s about God giving people what they need to make it through. For our family, blending our traditions and eventually creating some of our own has evolved naturally, with love and respect for each other and our cultures. And that is our miracle.

May you and yours experience your own miracles this season.