happy hanukkah!

yep.

today we celebrated hanukkah.

it was early, even for us.
i renamed the celebration halloweenukkah several years ago as we traditionally untraditionally celebrate it much closer to halloween...but we are all busy this year so mid october was our only option.

(we have snowy birds that fly in a few weeks...)


so latkes, miracle retellings, a mealtime nap and gelt ( oh the lovely gelt;)) it was, admidst falling leaves and the faint smell of thanksgiving turkey still present in the air.

le gelt

le nap

in our family we never seem to be able to quite celebrate anything at the right time ( yes, holly, you
will get a birthday party sometime soon. i promise. i know.  july 21st was a long time ago ). 


i am trying to figure out if we are confusing our kids by doing this...i know we are messing up our friends.

i decided a long time ago that it is not the date that dictates a holiday, but the people with whom you share it. if they are not there, then it is just not right, no matter what the calendar says. a friend once commented that putting yourself "out" to accommodate others was just part of the holiday fun. tradition. rigamarole. family angst.
that may be true...but is it necessary?

as a kid, i do not ever remember NOT celebrating anything on the proper day. ever.
but perhaps the fact that the church is not all that flexible had something to do with that.
i mean, mass waited for no one.
and mass decided all schedules in my youth. 
today, in our mixed up family, not so much.
hell. we celebrate peaster and chrismakkuh. we get all the details right, just not always the timing.
and no mass. or synagogue to set our watches by.


over the years, i have had one kid identify as jewish, one who claimed christianity as the way to go, and then there was the time that one described their religious afiliation as "auclair".
well, perhaps being related to me takes a little faith.

maybe we are messing our kids up just a bit.

in any case, a lovely day was had by all. the cousins played, the inlaws chatted and on this lovely hanukkah day, brother andre became saint brother andre.
i found this both touching and a little ironic. having spent the day feeling quite jewish, i got home and was able to revisit the one religious figure from my childhood i thought would have made an interesting dinner guest. and here he is, a saint. and me feeling all nostalgic for the oratoire and seeing the crutches again.
i am not a religious person. well, not traditionally. but who does not love a saint? a montrealer to boot.
this is a big day.

i may be a little messed up over all this.

wherever i went with all this, it was a lovely day all around for all the religions in our family.

and the latkes, as always, were to die for:).


(not playing favourites, so for those of you not familiar with saint brother andre, the oratory and my crutches reference here you go. and for general hanukkah irreverance, check out harry hanukkah on SNL clips on youtube. i can't link them because the are not allowed to play in canada. not even going to hazard a guess why. but they are not hard to find;).)