Self Centered

When I walked in to the the apartment, I was surprised by the grocery bag with box stuffing, canned cranberry sauce, and a roasting pan for a turkey sitting beside the door.  I thought to myself "huh - I didn't know they did turkey on Thanksgiving" and for a split second I thought that the mom had just come in from shopping and laid her things down by the door.  Then I realized that here was a care package delivered by some charitable organization to families in need during the holidays.  I also realized that all the things still in the bag were probably going right back out the door to someone else who would use them.  Not everyone cooks a turkey, likes turkey, or needs a turkey.  It was the first time I had considered all of those holiday dinner care packages in this way, and realized how much we don't know, or don't ask, about who we are helping to feed. 

I'm noticing this year that while people have their hearts in the right place, we are a very very self centered country when it comes to "our" holidays.  This morning at the grocery store, the cashier behind me asked the little boy if he was ready for Santa.  "Have you been good?"  Of course he's been good - he's barely 2!  What could he possibly do that would deem him "bad enough" for Santa to ignore him?  Then she went on about Santa not coming if he was a bad boy and such.  Good lord.  Maybe he doesn't celebrate Christmas.  Maybe his family has never talked about Santa. And maybe his family feel that all children are "good" regardless of the imminent visit from St. Nick.  I'm glad we weren't the ones in that line, since I'm not really sure how that conversation would have gone. 

Assumptions.  It's just that we assume that everyone is just like us.  And the reality is that they are not.  We live in an amazing multicultural world, and my area in particular has a huge variety of people from every country imaginable.  Each family has wonderful, varied traditions, dishes, customs, ideas, and holidays.  What if... instead of assuming, we all asked.  What if, we said "what is your family's favorite holiday?"  What if we asked what they do to celebrate?   What if we asked what they most need or want to help their celebration?  What if we cared to know?

Celebrations

We've all been sick over here, so not much writing is going on, but I wanted to share a bit of our holiday...

The Winter Solstice was last week, and we had some friends over to celebrate. The kids made candles and lit them in a solstice spiral in the yard. As they walked back out of the spiral, they each lit a votive or tea light - it was beautiful when it was all lit up! The idea (for us anyway) is that you are walking towards the sun, and each of us gets to share a bit of the light. It was a calm and meditative way to enter into winter. The kids were cold though and patiently waited their turn to walk, but once they lit the candles they wanted to go back inside fast!

A few days before Christmas, I heard Peanut telling her "girls" that Santa would come and bring them presents. I thought this was pretty funny since Santa chat around here is pretty minimal. Amazing.

Well, she set all of her girls up one day for some snacks at the dining room table. This was after we had given them all baths and helped them go potty. Of course they all have place mats and their own little dishes. Love that kid.

Christmas morning, the kids woke up and I think Pumpkin was unclear a

bout all the stuff under the tree. It took him a while to even notice it. Pea

nut had been talking about "the pink princess and the yellow princess" for a few days too, and I was concerned that since neither of the princesses was under that tree, she would be disappointed. I think they were both pretty happy - they played all day with their new toys, and nothing has been tossed aside.

I think her favorite gift was a purple fairy outfit. She wore it all day and even dressed her ballerina to match.

I got a badly needed new camera, an unexpected radio/zune dock for the kitchen, and an even more unexpected spa day. I have a wonderfully thoughtful gift giver for a husband. There's no question about that.

We spent the rest of the day piddling around, playing kitchen and restaurant with all the new play food, and racing matchbox cars. What a life!

Happy Hanukkah!

It's the first night of Hanukkah, and although it is a minor holiday in the realm of Jewish holidays it has continued to gain importance because of its proximity to Christmas. We've talked a bit about the holiday; its origins and meaning. We've read some children's books, and pulled out the menorah in the past week or so. The kids are primed for the holiday and not a moment too soon since the Christmas lights are beginning to multiply like rabbits and take us sweeping past all of December in the blink of an eye.

We began the day opening some gifts from grandma. Although I'd prefer to wait until the candle lighting, I knew there was a craft menorah in there and wanted to give Peanut a chance to make it before the evening. Of course, that meant we had three menorahs - the fancy one I've had for 15+ years, the egg carton one we made last year and the new one from today. A Hanukkah trifecta.

Next we put together a little Happy Hanukkah banner - really anything with glitter glue is a hit around here. It may seem like a silly craft, but I liked that we could talk about letters and words, do a little eye hand coordination "sewing" the letters onto the cord, and have both kids put the stickers on and choose where to hang it up. We already have a few Hanukkah "ornaments" hanging from our dining room chandelier which I have always thought is pretty funny since there is no Hanukkah tree to put them on. Clearly an non-Jew came up with that plan.

After playgroup this morning, Peanut was able to carve out some time to paint her new menorah and add some glitter to that as well. Of course the painting continued until her arms and hands were covered with paint to her elbows. My sensory queen :)

Once everyone was home this evening, we lit the candles, said the prayers, and immediately Peanut wanted to sing and blow the candles out. We talked a little more about the candles and why we let them burn rather than blowing them out. I cooked up a fried meal of breaded cod, potato latkes with applesauce, and some random veggies. Since we celebrate the miracle of light this holiday, you are supposed to eat foods made with oil in remembrance of the oil that lit the lamps in the temple for 8 days.

All in all , a good first night! Both kids read more Hanukkah books before bed and seemed to enjoy the whole thing. The current plan is to keep the focus on this holiday through it's end next week. Then next weekend we will turn to Solstice and Christmas. Hopefully was can make it that long! I have to say, I am please that Hanukkah is early this year as it is really helping us to keep our head in one direction. Last year Christmas and Hanukkah were a day apart and it was confusing for me, not to mention a two year old. Happy Hanukah!!!

Holiday Mash Ups

Halloween was last Sunday. It is Friday, and we took a short outing to Target for a birthday gift this afternoon. We found the things we needed, and took the obligatory stroll down the "girl" aisle. Peanut (and Pumpkin really), love to see the baby dolls. They both hold them, carry and talk to different ones, and point out all of the cool things the babies have - like sequined diapers, or do - like play peek a boo with a cheshire cat like expression. We've of course moved on to having another aisle we must visit - the Princess aisle - where the kids can see all of their favorite movie princesses with their sparkly gowns and perfect coifs, and they can buy clothes "just like them mommy!".

Well, our little trips are always fun since the kids know that whatever they play with usually wants to go back "with its friends" so "someone else can play with it too". Thank goodness we started that early, otherwise that store would be an absolute nightmare. Anyway, the point of all of this is that after our usual rounds, we went down to the Halloween section as I figured there might be some fun things on sale that I could snag for decorations next year. Um, yeah. There were a ton of costumes left, and little else - but what I couldn't miss if I tried was the CHRISTMAS STUFF WAS OUT IN FULL FORCE!!!! Really. We not even really close to Thanksgiving people. What the heck?

OK, so the funniest part - well there are two funny parts. First, there is one aisle completely dedicated to Hanukkah. There were festive blue and silver wall and window decals, star garlands, make your own menorah, countdown to Hanukkah calendar, and all kinds of other junk. I saw a few boxes of candles, which you actually need for the celebration, but everything else was just random nonsense to try to force the holiday to compete with Christmas. For anyone not in the know, Hanukkah is quite a minor Jewish holiday and it's significance has only increased due to the fact that it is around the same time as Christmas. The second funny thing was that there were many people shopping in the Christmas aisle! I don't know about you, but I already have all my stuff for Hanukkah, Christmas, and Solstice for that matter from last year, and I am sure not buying any new shwag full price before freaking Thanksgiving. Humph.

Next year, I am expecting to see an aisle for Solstice and Kwanzaa too. I can't wait to see the plastic sun lamps, commemorative mirrors, and such they will come up with. Oy!

Lights!

Every year around as the Christmas lights began to shine in our neighborhood. I'd beg my mom and dad for lights at our house. We celebrated Hanukkah and Christmas, although neither one religiously, but for some reason lights were NOT going to be on the outside of our house or in our yard. As I got older and went through several periods of "finding myself" and my religion or lack thereof, I began to understand. The lights signified a level of celebration that did not fit our family. We had a tree (a whole other story about my thematically decorating the tree - a white tree we one year with only red decorations I think - I read too many Good Housekeeping magazines), and Santa came but I don't think I knew anything about Jesus until I was in junior high.

This weekend, my Honey had the sweetest conversation with Peanut while we were at my moms for Hanukkah. They were talking about how wonderful it was and how lucky she is to be in a family that celebrates Hanukkah and Christmas. She is just beginning to understand the presents (she still says she wants chocolate ice cream for Christmas), and loves the lights of the candles in the Menorah and the lights in our neighbors yards. Every day, she asks to see "more Christmas!" and looks out the window to see the white and colored lights, the deer and polar bears, Santas and snowmen. Yesterday, we put up the Christmas tree and she entered the living room wide eyed after her nap and said "Christmas in OUR HOUSE!"

We've chosen to focus on the lights and the seasonal aspects of the holidays, rather than the commercial or religious parts. On my path, I have come to learn that many of the Christmas traditions started with the celebration of solstice. As an aside, I quite enjoyed the primetime reference to this from Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory , although there was of couse the requisite subtle bashing of those who celebrate Solstice. Honey tivoed (I actually had to look this up to see if it was a word and how to spell it) it and saved it for me... Maybe it is my rationalization, but I love Christmas lights and so does Peanut, so if we are celebrating the Solstice and honoring the light, shouldn't we decorate the outside of our house? I felt a little guilty last year when we put lights up on the two trees on either side of our front door. This year I'd love to expand on that a bit more and feel no guilt about it at all. Even if the outside world assumes that it means we are religious, I know it means we just love the lights and are shining them bright while we wait for the sun to come back and make our days longer.

Happy Holidays! This has been a wonderful week - very busy and fun. I got my new kitchen for Christmas and Hanukkah and so did Peanut! Which one do you like best?

Our countertops were installed on Christmas eve, and our plumbing was completed today - so now we have a fully functional kitchen! I even hooked up the electric on the dishwasher (with a little tutelage). I do love the counters - they are the perfect color and I like how they look with the rest of the room. I've already made blueberry muffins and sugar cookies and we have a turkey in the oven right now. I am really looking forward to making an omelet tomorrow. I know Honey is looking forward to using the dishwasher instead of going down to the laundry room sink to do dishes every night!

We worked on some of the thresholds this week - we finished the transition from the rec room to the gym, and I daresay it is the best one yet. So good, in fact, that I want to go and redo all of the other ones. It really is true that practice makes perfect - you can see where our learning curve is in this house!

I'd like to get to some minor things like outlet covers and painting the baseboards, but I was impressed that we got the tree up and even got a few lights outside before Christmas day. We had to prioritize, and being festive came first. We've even been able to light the Menorah most nights.

We've got a few more big projects planned (a few windows replaced, new gutters, insulating the attic), but those are all being contracted out. So now it is just finish work for us - painting, trim, new closet doors, touch ups, and rearranging the furniture. Honey's mom is here this week and his brother and sister and their family will be here tomorrow. We are getting some work done this week, but I think we are really going to just enjoy the next couple of days of no longer roughing it.

I'm hoping to look just as happy cooking in the new kitchen as Peanut does in hers!