I Love Christmas; So Why Does My Daughter Love Hanukkah?
I've embarrassed my parents before by writing about how much I love Christmas. I mean, I love love it, in the way that only a Jew can. I love the trees and the lights, the creepy claymation specials and corny Christmas movies-especially "It's a Wonderful Life." Growing up Jewish, I had a big holiday chip on my shoulder. I felt disenfranchised from such secular wonders as eggnog and "Jingle Bell Rock," alienated from the world of elves and department store Santas and crooners crooning "White Christmas" way too early in the season in every store.
So I was pretty excited for my kids that they, thanks to my gentile husband, would legitimately get to celebrate the seasonal splendor of gingerbread-flavored-everything and songs about reindeer. During Christmas, I go all out making decorations and treats, finding presents, and planning fun Christmassy events.
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Which is why it's so funny that my daughter is in love with Hanukkah. For two years now in our home we've had that cross-cultural cacophony of holidays with no real explanation. In one corner, the always-a-little-too-big tree, all done up in ornaments, lights, and candy canes; the undercarriage piled with presents. In other corner sits the humble menorah with its waxy candles always threatening to fall out and burn the building down.
Harper loves the menorah. She plays "Hanukkah" all year round. When the cake and candles were brought out at a birthday party last winter, she joyously exclaimed, "Hanukkah!" For about six months after Hanukkah ended, she informed anyone who asked that her favorite song was, much to my music-buff husband's dismay, "Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah." There was a Hanukkah picture book we finally had to hide this summer, because we were so sick of reading it.
What self-respecting kid, given both of these winter-holidays-with-lights behemoths, goes for Hanukkah? The modest little menorah, the scant opportunities for decoration or excess, the meager gifts. Christmas offers spiced cookies dotted with glittering dragées! Hanukkah has…potato pancakes. Yet, there's Harper, totally into it.
Isn't that just the way of parenting? You try to make it so your child won't have the same issues you had as a child, which of course is completely missing the point, because they're completely different people, growing up in a different world. So I guess I'll just brush up on the rules of playing dreidel and settle into an enthusiastic Hanukkah. Good thing I really like potato pancakes...err, latkes.
Amy Shearn is the mother of two small children, and is the proprietress of Household Words, a blog about babies, books, and Brooklyn. She also writes for Oprah.com and MommyPoppins.com. Amy is the author of the novel How Far Is the Ocean From Here (Shaye Areheart/Crown 2008) and a forthcoming novel about, what else, a Brooklyn mother, which needs a title and will be published by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in 2013.
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