Welcome to the Commenting Pixie Party!
Phantom, this is beautifully written. You grabbed me from the first well crafted sentence. You totally painted a picture for me. Lovely.
My great, great grandmother had a saying "Do unto your children as you wish your parents had done unto you."
The best we can do is not about not making mistakes, but not making the same mistakes.
My guess is that your children will remember how much they were loved all year round, not just at Hanukah.
A beautiful thought-provoking post.
Brave and honest, Phantom. Thank you for putting it up.
The drama at holiday time usually came from my sister, whose birthday is the day after Christmas. Smashed crockery and slammed doors were routine. One relatively recent Christmas, maybe 5 years ago, A. and I were staying in the basement and heard the familiar crash of pottery hitting the floor. Conditioned by long experience, my adrenaline surged, I cowered, and I resolved to stay downstairs until someone sounded the all-clear. Then A. asked "Where's Diva Dog?" Upstairs. Knocking pie-plates off the kitchen table. Of course.
Sounds like progress to me.
Still snickering at the thought of the purple and orange plastic zebra pin.
I'm sure BB and LG will have lovely memories. Their childhoods sound mostly wonderful to me!
This is beautiful, Phantom.
Oh, Phantom.
"Someday my kids will have to decide that for themselves. They'll construct their own narratives of what our family traditions were like, how they succeeded or failed at the business of creating a loving family and a connection to the culture around them".
There is so much wisdom and poignancy int that...
I'm with Lisa V. Given the choice between love and piles of presents, well, duh. Especially when the presents come with yelling and smashing things.
But there's something about the title of this post that makes me want to sing it to the tune of the Canadian national anthem.
Another gorgeous post. No big surprise, I'm with everyone else on the relative value of piles of presents vs. stable & loving parents.
(Also, I enjoyed the alternating spellings of Chanukah/Hanukkah 
Elswhere, I was wondering if anyone was going to notice my attempts to undermine the hegemonic single spelling of Hanukkah. Hey, what's the point of transliterating if you can't spell it any damn way you want, anyway?
P/H, in fact, there is a holiday song called Oh Hanukkah, which I always hated.
(to the tune of Oh Canada-)
Oh Hanukkah
My Winter Holiday
We re-ded-icate
Like tradition say...
Ahem. Okay, so I got all Yoda there.
Christmas isn't supposed to be near as big as Easter in the catholic calendar either, which supports my assertion that those of us with the big celebrations are all heathen pagans, using any excuse for excess in the middle of winter.
( bustin' out Oh Canada again)
...With glowing candles
We see thee rise
Mac-ca-bees strong and free
From far and wide
Oh Hanukkah
We light a menorah for thee...
And there ends my knowledge of the tradition of Hanukkah. Even though I have some national anthem left.
I had to force menorah, though.
I was wondering about the different spellings, though I think you wimped out -- I can imagine more than just the two or three you used: (c)han(n)uk(k)a(h).
I just sang the 'Oh Chanukah' song last week, actually -- I forget why.
Mostly I like when Chanukah is a minor, not very different day. And your kids won't miss the dreidls -- there is nothing more boring than that game. It's a mark of good parenting to keep them from being endlessly disappointed that the game sucks.
you're the bomb, Phantom.
Hang on, hang on, hang the hell on. I have never heard such disgusting sacrilege in my life:
Your kids hate chocolate?!
Indeed you are. And I definitely caught the spelling twists.
As always, you take us to deep places, whether or not we celebrate the same holidays.
Sounds to me like you're making sure they have far, far happier family memories than you do, at Hanukkah (I submit to the hegemony!) and year-round.
Also, you tell one hell of a story.
Beautifully written, Phantom. Unfortunately, fairly familiar too. Another dysfunctional Jewish family, another mother that didn't know how to love so spent money on stupid crap we didn't need or want, a household filled with crepe paper decorations, foldout dreidels, hanukiyot, and gelt. But behind the decoration was a family in so much pain, children so unsure of whether or not another holiday would see us together as a family. Like you, I don't do much for Hanukkah either. A present a day, nothing big or exciting, mostly clothes. We light the hanukiyot most night, but not all. But the love, even in the midst of our mental illness tsuris, the love is sure and fine and better than any material thing.
Fascinating. And beautifully written.
Your kids are going to be fine. You're making your own traditions in a way that fits you.
Thank you for some more lovely writing and food for thought too...
A beautiful post. I think you have definitely made forward progress.
Such a deep and thoughtful post. Thank you for sharing, and for a chance to reflect on my own Chanukkahs past and future.
Thank you, also, to wolfa for confirming I am not alone with my sacrilegious opinion that dreidl is dreadfully dull to play.
I've always found hanukah (minimalist spelling for me) to be wonderfully forgiving. you miss one night, you make it up the next. we don't do much with presents either - hapazard, random -- pretty much describe the holiday around here.
almond joy, however, is insisting that I promised sufganiot last year so even if it's over for this year, she's still waiting. and expects them this week.
thanks, Phantom.
Oh Phantom, this is all the things I love best about your writing. Really, this one should be packaged up for publication - it reads more like an essay than a blog post. Beautiful, insightful, honest.
You know, when this post came through on my bloglines last night just before I rushed off to work, I turned to the sqvirrel and said, "I'm not going to read this right away. I need the time to savor the Phantom posts." And I'm so glad I waited.
I like what Lisa V's great, great grandmother said. I think it is beautiful and moving that you have (consciously) created difference between your childhood Hanukkahs and your children's Chanukahs.
It reminds me that I don't have to toss out Christmas all together, even though my childhood Christmases were full of shouting and (emotional) pain, exhausted parents, and over-wrought, sugar-high kids. The pendulum, it doesn't *have* to swing to the extreme position of NO Christmas/Hanukkah (like I am sometimes wont to do) but that some space exists in there, in between. I think you and Mr. Blue- you have succeeded in finding that place. Cheers.
Arwen gave me a coughing fit! Thanks a lot, Arwen!
"My mother bought so many presents because something about shopping seemed to quiet the little voices in her head. Shopping made her feel competent as a person and a parent somehow, as if the purchasing of gifts was an effective substitute for the warm feelings she could not summon even if she tried. She spent too much, more than we could really afford, and then my parents would argue about money."
Wait, I think we must have the same parents. They're still like this, and actually my mom yelled at me yesterday when I said I wasn't buying Hosea any gifts this year. Yelled. For no gifts. For my 3-month-old. Sigh.
Thanks for the post, PS.
Yah, Rachel, I've had taht "O Canada/Oh Hanukkah" amalgam in my brain all day, working on more verses. Uh, thanks, Arwen.
Happy to annoy, elswhere! *g*
This entry made me feel a lot less alone. Thanks for that, although I'm sorry we both, with our respective December holidays, had to experience childhood holidays like this.
So many people already said what I was going to:
You show your love to your children throughout the year so you don't have to equate this one holiday with love.
I loved your different spellings.
Your mom is totally fucked up, but in a way I recognize. My family was not as fucked, but there was a definite theme of making it all okay through the giving of too many gifts.
MM doesn't get gifts from MS and me on Hanukah, but we do light the candles every night. This is just about the only religious thing he experiences in our home.
Dear Phantom, I'm so sorry for your mother, also.
I'm sure she was trying to construct a Hanukah that was different from HER childhood. I can't help thinking that your dad should've been more sensitive to that and not criticized her so much for trying to give you what she had never had, even if she did it in a warped way. I mean, she wasn't buying fur coats, right?
Oy vey, please, everyone have a happy holiday and hold your loved ones close. Life is so short.
P.S. I hope I didn't sound insensitive to how painful this must have been to you to go through all this. If I had been your Mom I would've given you some warm seasonal hugs, dear girl.
Beautifully written. And I think your Hanukkah celebration's understatedness is lovely in and of itself.
This is so beautiful Phantom. Thank you.
(o)
Lovely, Phantom.
Way belated, but I wanted to add my own "beautiful" to the chorus.
And also, if the kids have presents all the time, they can't think of them as love substitute, because duh, they have the love all the time, so nothing to substitute for. Or something like that.
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