Happy Holidays!

You hear that all the time, right? This year, we took it to heart. We celebrated Hanukkah, Yule, and Christmas. "Your kids will grow up with all those traditions mixed up in their minds," my ever-practical Grandma Dorothy stated, in what I took to be a tone of consternation. I relaxed when she continued, "and that's just the way it should be."

Zephyr has been obsessed with Hanukkah ever since he received My First Hanukkah Board Book from a Jewish friend, years ago. He pores over the book year round, memorizing the names of the letters on the dreidel, wondering if he would like sour cream on his latkes, counting lit candles on the menorah pictures, and imploring me to sing Maoz Tzur. He unscrews the handle of the Swiffer from the base so he can use it as a spear when playing Hanukkah Bad Guys. "You're Judah Maccabee and I'm one of the guards for King Yadayachus," he'll tell Jon, which seems like something that would come straight out of a toddler Seinfeld episode.

After consulting with Jewish friends Katie and Jess (who both kindly fielded too many phone calls from this Hanukkah virgin), we decided to make a go of celebrating the holiday. We purchased candles and gelt, looked up recipes for latkes and doughnuts, and lined up eight gifts (mostly things I found around the house or needed to purchase anyway, like warm pajamas and a new package of markers.)

We were invited to Jess's for the first night, and enjoyed listening to him sing the blessings as he lit the candles. "Is it okay to have ketchup with latkes?" I timidly asked. Jess sighed and answered, "You can do what you want," in a tone that Kamy interpreted as disapproval. "No," explained Jess, "that was actually a tone of Jewish affection."

One night we tried our hand at potato pancakes and hosted our friends, but the rest of the nights, it was just our little family. Zephyr was able to keep his attention on dreidel much longer than all the other games on our shelf, and Jubilee managed to suck her first taste of chocolate through the gelt wrapper. Zephyr received gifts the first three nights (pj's, sunglasses, and a book) but when I realized he wasn't asking, I stopped pulling them out. He has plenty of childhood left to be gift-hungry.

Kamy called a few days later. "Are you celebrating Yule with us, or Christmas on the 25th?" "I have to choose?!?" I asked, incredulously. On Yule Eve we went to her house for a circle. We all wrote on red cloth ties what we were grateful for and what we hoped to have in abundance throughout the new year. Zephyr, appropriately enough, said "Light!" Then we decorated them with glitter (because it was at Kamy's), tied them on a tree, blessed the tree with wassail, and congregated for potluck and conversation. The next morning we snatched the kids out of warm beds, bundled up, and met up at a high place in the city with various percussion instruments to drum up the sun.

On Christmas Eve we went to an old town square to walk amidst the luminarias, and had the good luck of running into some dear friends who we just don't see enough. We were invited to their home afterwards for a lovely visit. The kids only melted down once each, which was remarkable since we were out way past their bedtime. We came home, put them in their now-traditional matching new pajamas, and awakened to a wonderfully lazy and relaxing Christmas Day. I made spanikopita and cherry cobbler (green and red) for dinner, we opened a few gifts and phoned family. My favorite part of the day was when Jubilee was sleeping on my lap while I read and Zephyr was sleeping on Jon's lap while he read. It was like our long-time parenting fantasy coming true. The fact that he was reading, and loving, the book I gave him for Christmas (Integral Urban House) sealed the perfection of the moment.

So those were our happy holidays. I hope yours were just as full, satisfying, and amusing as ours, whether you celebrated one, two, or three of the above!