My First Hanukkah - Creating Our Own Traditions

Last year at Hanukkah, we were in the middle of our Intro to Judaism course to study for my conversion and had just moved into our house, so our Hanukkah celebration was a little slapdash. We gave each other a few presents all on the first night, and we lit the electric menorah that my parents had given us, placing it in our sunporch window at the front of the house. That was pretty much it.

This year we made sure to get each other eight gifts and are only opening one per night. We have more decorations around the house that we bought on clearance for 90% off last year after the holiday - a little sign, two sets of dreidels, a crystal dreidel for our dining room table, dish towels, and two menorahs. We used the book our rabbi gave us that has blessings for home rituals to say the blessings for lighting the menorah.

My family is infamous for the quirky things we make into traditions. Everyone has traditions, of course, but we can be very ritualistic about the most arbitrary of things. Like the recent development in the past decade of a tradition of having a Krispy Kreme donut on Halloween morning - where did that come from and how did it become a thing?? It's one of the things I love about us, and Nicole is very patient and flexible (and sometimes amused). Since Hanukkah is new for me, the creation of traditions were just sort of tumbling out as we went along with whatever seemed "right" to me. So here is what we have already set into motion after just one season - and actually, just two days so far of one season!

We light the menorah and say the blessings. Then we put the next bulb into the electric menorah. Then we sit at the table and have "family time" until the candles have burned out, approximately an hour or less. This family time can include exchanging a gift, eating dinner, reading together, talking, anything. But we stay around the table. A gift cannot be exchanged until the menorah is lit, signifying that the next night of Hanukkah has begun. You can pick which gift you'd like to open from your pile, unless the giver has a reason to ask you to open a specific one that evening.

I am loving Hannukah rituals. I love that it lasts for EIGHT DAYS. It helps it not to be so anticlimactic. For eight days we get to light our beautiful menorah and exchange a gift and celebrate. It's not over too soon. I also love exchanging one gift at a time. I feel like it gives us a whole day to really enjoy that item and revel in it rather than having something get lost in the pile. Tonight Nicole gave me a lush bathrobe, and I will cherish it all day tomorrow while I eagerly anticipate the next gift. Oh glorious torment! I looove dragging it out like this.

Nicole does not love the torment quite as much as I do! She misses waking up to a pile of presents. She misses getting everything at once, and dragging it out day by day is less enjoyable to her than it is to me. We have always been different in that sense - I love the anticipation of a happy thing or event and it kills Nicole to wait! But even as she misses this, her eyes light up as we kindle the menorah and she joins me in the blessings without me having to ask her or give up trying. It warms my heart to watch her love of Jewish traditions grow as we go through the year. I just have to meet her halfway on this to help ease the tension for her. Like tonight we had Thanksgiving dinner at her parents' house, and as soon as it got dark (which was like 4:30!) she was antsy to get home and open another present. We lit our menorah there and I told her that as soon as it had burned out, we could go home. Once she knew what to expect, she was fine and relaxed and enjoyed the family time until it was time to go. I just had to keep my promise.

Nicole's mom said she hadn't realized Hanukkah was coming so soon and said that she had to get better about that and have a gift for us. I told her that we are happy to celebrate Hanukkah within our little household, and that we are fine with having our families exchange gifts on Christmas which is their holiday. I said that our kids will grow up knowing their extended families on both sides celebrate Christmas, and we are okay with them being included in that. We are secure enough in how we are creating a Jewish home that we can allow them to celebrate our families' holidays with them. Similarly, Nicole's brother and his fiancee, neither of whom identify as Jewish, come to our house for Rosh Hashanah dinner - they don't observe the holiday as a New Year for themselves and won't with their kids, but they come to celebrate OUR holiday with US, because it's about coming together as family with what's important to us. If my parents lived here, they'd be coming over for dinner too! It's the family togetherness that matters, and I'm about building connection and inclusion, not barriers.

Speaking of "Thanksgivukkah," I made latkes for the first time this year (and yes, said a "Shehechiyanu" at the stovetop!). Nicole has made latkes all her life, so it was very meaningful for me to be able to join in that tradition. It also helped me in a subtle way to bring Hanukkah into our Thanksgiving dinner since I knew it would otherwise by overshadowed. I used a recipe I found online for sweet potato latkes with homemade cranberry applesauce, and they were delicious! Nicole doesn't eat sweet potatoes and ate at least four of these. They were praised and quickly devoured by Jew and non-Jew alike, and I was so, so happy.

Yes, I am nostalgic for some of what I left behind. Of course I am. But I am so happy and fulfilled by what we are creating together!

Making a Jewish Home

Early in the year during one of my meetings with the rabbi to study for my conversion, I asked her if there is any Jewish tradition around blessing the home. I told her that my multi-cultured coworkers told me that their traditions and cultures all have something like that, and that it is the first thing you do when you move in, so I was curious, and also we had a mezuzah we'd gotten as a wedding gift that we still hadn't put up because we didn't really know how. She hesitated and then said, "We could do something like that if you wanted. Kind of a Jewish housewarming, you could have some friends and family over and make an event of it." I said I'd love that, but inside I worried that her response meant there WASN'T really anything like that and she just didn't want to embarrass me so she was kind of trying to create something. Which in turn embarrassed me. So I didn't plan to bring it up again.

At my conversion in April, I received several more mezuzahs as gifts. Then I went by Rabbi's office in August to say goodbye after Nicole arrived to pick me up from some event, and I was talking to her about our garden and she said, "Did you ever get those mezuzahs up?" I said, "No, we still haven't!" And she said, "Do you still want me to come over and help?" And I said, "Yes, I would LOVE that!" I was so excited that she had brought it up several months later. It made me feel like she hadn't just been pacifying me in the moment earlier in the year, or trying to keep from hurting my feelings, but actually thought it'd be something nice to do. So we said we would aim for October or November after the High Holy Days were over. I also told her to bring her husband and daughter and we would have a nice, intimate gathering with some snacks, nothing fancy or elaborate.

So it happened today, and it was just the perfect day. We had my in-laws over, so my carpenter father-in-law did the actual hammering. We also had my friend Allyson and her husband Josh over. We had also invited A&A (our fellow queer couple from temple) and their two little boys, but they canceled the night before because one of the parents had pinkeye.

Nicole and I have spent over a week scrubbing and cleaning and re-organizing the house and even finalizing some much-procrastinated decorating, like putting up our wedding photo canvas. I took such pleasure in preparing for this little event. We went shopping for a TON of healthy and wholesome snack foods Thursday night, and today after Torah study we zipped home to get everything together before Rabbi came over at 2:00. So while she was busy doing Tot Shabbat and a Hanukkah workshop for preschoolers, we were cutting up cheese and fruit, baking brownies, changing out our placemats, chopping up veggies and making dip, and wrapping the little Hanukkah gift we had bought Rabbi's 7-year-old daughter.

I'm pretty sure I was already getting misty-eyed as soon as we opened the door for our rabbi and she gave me a hug. There was something so beautiful and emotional to me about welcoming her family into our home and hosting them. There was also a little bit of the feeling of a second-grader whose teacher comes over - "and look, this is my room and these are my toys and this is my cat!" It was such an unusual way to interact with her, to have her in OUR space instead of at temple, and I just loved it. Everyone stood around the kitchen and then around the living room chatting cozily as if we were all family. My heart was so happy and full.

After almost two hours of talking, I started to worry that we were keeping Rabbi and that she was just too polite to rush us to the mezuzah-hanging. I didn't want to assume that she planned to spend her entire afternoon here when she just offered to come over and help! So when she took her daughter to the bathroom, I got out the mezuzahs and started arranging them on the dining room table. I figured when they came back out, she could take my cue and approach me about them and get things started. But she walked right past me with her daughter who wanted to go spin the dreidels on our coffee table. That was my first major indicator that Rabbi was having a good time too. That we weren't imposing ourselves on her, or putting her out of her way, or squeezing ourselves into her schedule. She truly enjoyed spending time with us in our home.

I actually had to bring it up when Allyson and Josh said they had to get going. I asked if we could put up the one on our front door all together before they left, and that got us started. Rabbi explained to everyone what the mezuzah is and said some nice words about our new home and the people in it and taught us the blessing for affixing the mezuzah. We recited it together and then my father-in-law affixed it. Rabbi said, "Is this a moment for a Shehechiyanu?" That's the blessing for new things and special moments that basically thanks God for bringing you to this place. It's a wonderful way to freeze a moment, fully immerse yourself in it, and appreciate what is happening. I said, "Since I'm already crying, I'm pretty sure it's appropriate to say it!" and we all sang it together.

We moved to the next one, which is shaped like a Torah scroll and was given to us by Nicole's grandmother. We chose that doorway because the sunporch is used as our "study" and has all our Jewish books and our Torah. Rabbi asked us to read the words on it, and I said out of insecure panic, "We can't read Hebrew! We're working on it, though." Then after I paused for a second, I recognized the first few letters and said excitedly, "Wait, SH'MA, that says Sh'ma!" I was so proud of myself reading those three Hebrew letters. So then we said the "Sh'ma" prayer all together.

The next mezuzah is shaped like a tree of life, and we put that in our living room because that will be the center of our family life at home. So then Rabbi sang a song about the tree of life that none of the rest of us could sing but was really fun!

The next one was made out of copper and had been given to us as a wedding gift by Allyson over two years ago. After that we hung up two more outdoor ones, the rainbow one given to us by A&A for my conversion which we affixed in the doorway to a storage room in our basement, the one our friend Jen gave us as a housewarming gift a year ago which we affixed in the doorway from the kitchen to the basement, and then finally the one with the pretty pink flowers which we put in the doorway of our bedroom. Because it was the last one, Rabbi gave everyone a chance to say out loud good wishes for us and our home.

Rabbi also gave us a housewarming gift of the book On the Doorposts of Your House which has guides to different family and home rituals, and her husband included bread, salt, and a broom which he said is a tradition of many European cultures.

The whole day was so awesome. I loved having Rabbi and her family in our home, and I loved the specialness and meaning she helped infuse in the ritual of affixing our mezuzahs. It would not have been nearly so special if we had just gone around nailing them up on our own!

Edited 11/17/13 to add that I just realized yesterday was the one year anniversary of our closing on our house. On 11/16/12, a Friday last year, we giddily grabbed the keys to OUR new house, which burned a hole in our pockets during that evening's Shabbat service. How incredibly touching to realize that, without planning it or even realizing it, exactly one year later we gathered with people we love and sanctified our home by affixing mezuzahs and saying blessings together and celebrating.

Life Updates

1. Last Friday night, Deborah Feldman, author of Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots, came to speak at our Shabbat service. First of all, just HOW FREAKIN' AWESOME to have a bestselling author come to our humble synagogue and spend time with us. She is a natural storyteller, so her speech was riveting, and then she wrapped it up in a decent amount of time so she could take questions and engage with the congregation's curiosity. She signed books at the oneg (shockingly few of us had actually brought the book to be signed) and we got to have a little chat there too. I told her that coming from the South, Judaism itself had been quite a mystery to me, and even now after my conversion, the ultra-Orthodox world she came from was completely foreign and shocking. (Ultra-Orthodox sects, contrary to what one might assume, did not actually exist until fairly recently...it came about as a response to the Holocaust, for Jews who believed that was a punishment for assimilation and felt they needed to make themselves stand out isolated from the world far more than they were.) Deborah said, "You left the land of barbecue to come here?? Please tell me you can still have pork ribs!"

Rabbi on the left, Deborah Feldman on the right

2. Last Sunday was the New York City Marathon, and my brother-in-law's fiancee ran in it. She was never an athlete and just took up running about two years ago after she got out of law school and before she found a job. Talk about inspiring. Nicole and I grumbled privately to each other for a while about having to go into Manhattan on such a crazy day, but we ended up having a great time. It's such a different feel from, say, a parade. Participants are working so hard and the spectators are there to support and cheer on, not to be entertained. We gathered at two different spots to see her pass by, and then we were meeting up with her friends and family at a bar afterward where my brother-in-law had rented out a little loft area for the group.

Watching the race was unexpectedly emotional for me. Seeing two different blind runners who held a rope circle with another runner to keep in line, people running on blades (the prosthetic limbs designed for athletics), people from all over the globe, a woman bursting into tears of exhaustion as soon as her partner stepped out to hug her at Mile 23 so then he ran alongside her for the last three miles.

Between our second spotting and the time we would all be meeting at the bar, there was over an hour to kill. And as we turned to walk with everyone, we realized we had been standing right in front of the Jewish Museum the whole time. I have been wanting to see the Chagall exhibit that leaves in February and figured, like always, we would never end up making it in to see it. We're both such homebodies and it takes a lot for us to commit to spending a day in the city, and the museum is not in a location convenient at all to Penn Station even, which makes it require extra motivation. So we looked at each other and lit up and both said alternately, "Really? Do you really want to? Can we? Is it okay?" Meanwhile my brother-in-law was encouraging us to go. He was so grateful that we had all come out to support his fiancee and wanted us to get out of the cold and do something we'd enjoy while we were there. We didn't have to be told twice.

The Chagall exhibit was awesome. He was a Soviet artist who moved to France and then to the US right before the war, so he had a lot of guilt and distress around what was happening to his fellow Jews back in Europe during the Shoah. I'm not even close to what one would call "cultured" or "a sophisticate," and I could appreciate the very obvious change in his works from before the war to during the war. They got much darker, lots of black and red and sad images. It was fascinating. Then on top of this, we got to see the rest of the museum where we'd never been. An intimate and quiet spontaneous date in the middle of a packed, crowded, and loud day.

3.  I'm super excited about "Thanksgivukah," the very rare, less-than-once-in-a-lifetime coinciding of Thanksgiving and Chanukah. I've already found a pumpkin latke recipe for the combined Thanksgiving/Chanukah dinner. The Jewish world is lit up with excitement and creative ideas over this holiday combination, and it's such a fun energy. But I have one minor issue - I don't know how to decorate!! It already feels strange sending holiday cards before Thanksgiving, but when to change out the orange and brown leaf-themed kitchen towels for the blue and white Chanukah towels is causing me more than a minimal amount of distress. We have a little box that looks like a miniature crate and says "Apples, 50 cents" on it that we use for our napkins and salt and pepper shakers on the dining room table. It's perfect for fall and Thanksgiving. But then we have a nice blue basket with white snowflakes and silver tinsel that would be perfect for the same purpose for Chanukah. When do I trade them out??

This is the fatal conflict: I hate decorating for one holiday before the preceding one is over, and I love decorating far in advance for each holiday so I have time to enjoy the decor. So what to do you do when they happen at the same time??

Our rabbi offered to come over and help us put up our mezuzahs, BLOWING MY MIND as to the role Jewish clergy can play in your life....this is beyond incredible of her and I'm excited out of my mind. This is next Saturday and because I'm ridiculously psyched for it, and because she won't exactly be a frequent visitor to our home, I want everything to be perfect. We've been toying with a date for a couple of months, and I had been very excited about cutesying my house up with fall decor...til we finally confirmed a date that is only two weeks before Chanukah, and now I want her to see our Chanukah decor! But while Chanukah colors fitting a winter theme is normally perfect, it's definitely not while we're not even at Thanksgiving yet.

Yes, I could put both baskets out, both sets of kitchen towels. But boy do they clash, and it goes against the perfectionist in my brain (who only makes rare appearances but this is most definitely one of them).

Chanukat