Last week's Friday Five asked about holiday traditions. I covered Christmas, more or less, and promised to get back to Chanukah. Voila.
As a child, I felt a spectacular lack of traditions. This may or may not have been true, but I thought it was. It was all tied up with living in an apartment and not a house, like everyone on TV, and being Jewish, unlike everyone on TV except the comedians on Ed Sullivan. We did have virtually the same Passover meal every spring, which I adored. Chanukah was another story.
Chanukah was lost on my father; I don't know if they even acknowledged it when he was growing up. It never really was a big deal anyway until American Jews felt the need to provide their children with a Christmas alternative, but I digress. My mother had picked up a very nothing-looking little menorah along the way, and that's the one we lit. It was silver colored, but not silver, a plank about 2 inches by 7 sitting on little peg feet, so the whole contraption was about a quarter inch off the table. Eight little candleholders lined the front edge, while behind them sat a wobbly Star of David with another candle holder perched on top. It was ug-lee. But I liked to watch the candles burn and drip, and needless to say, I liked getting presents.
My grandparents, and he was Orthodox, would light the candles when they were with us on Chanukah, Grandpa Sam saying the prayer, but I never saw a menorah in their home as a child. When they weren't there, we would read the prayer from an old, yellowed pamphlet my mother had, reading the phonetically-written Hebrew words in the English alphabet. The Hebrew meant nothing to us. We could read the translation below, though, so we knew what we were talking about. Still, no big deal, really.
About a year before Grandpa died, so that would be about 1970, a relative came to visit from Israel and brought this menorah as a gift to my grandparents.
Not to my taste. Grandma did love it, though, and showed her love for it by never ever using it. She did that with every gift she or Grandpa ever got. If it was wonderful and she loved it, she would put it away "for good." As in, for extra special use. Was she waiting for the Ultimate Chanukah to happen some year? No idea. But when I got married in 1977, she gave this to me, still in the original plastic wrap in which it traveled from Israel.
Never liked it, but I liked that Grandma gave it to me. Now that's a tradition, or at least the beginning of one. I began to use this as our menorah, lighting it every year on Chanukah, generally saying the prayer in my head. Yes, I know it. It's part of the show. I've been known to say it out loud from time to time as well.
(One year, my nephew J1, then about 16 I think, showed up just as we were lighting to see if he could score some latkes [potato pancakes] which I had also just made. From a mix, of course. Anyway, I suggested that since he was the only member of the family every Bar Mitzvahed, he could say the prayer. He rolled his eyes, and then sang the prayer in the most beautiful voice. It was the first time I ever knew that he could sing. He went on to star in several high school shows, and is now a professional singer/musician.)
I had another menorah, a tiny one, about five inches high altogether, which I used when I was away in college. It held birthday candles. It's still around someplace; R had it at college, but it's packed up now with her stuff so I don't have a picture. It was not very well made or shiny or pretty, but I liked the basic shape of it, like what I thought a menorah should look like.
Some years back, I'm guessing maybe the year after the brain tumor, so that would be eleven years ago, I decided that I finally wanted a menorah that I liked, so I went out and bought one.
The way my children carried on, you would think I had personally murdered Santa Claus. How could I not use the family menorah? The one my grandmother gave me? I was practically a criminal in their eyes!
As my grandmother might have said, feh. They could just suck that right up. (No, Grandma did not say that.) Since then, we light two, sometimes three when the little tiny one was handy. When I had a china closet in the living room, I kept all three of them there, lined up one in front of the other. I liked that.
Tomorrow night, we light. One candle on each menorah, plus the center candle that lights the others. I will say the magic words out loud, or in my head. Not for the higher power, who may or may not be listening, who knows. For Grandpa, for me.
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