Okay, I admit it, the Christmas tree is up.  It's not fully decorated and I've sort of been taking my time, but I am WAY excited about celebrating Christmas... of the secular variety.  Since we're living with Fionn now, I have a great excuse to deck the halls and play Bing Crosby music.   LOL!  The dinning room will be decked out with my Hannukkah ( Read more... )

I love having company over to the house, when my living room is full of people eating and talking and laughing I'm at my best.  However, to achieve this state I usually put my family through hell as I go into super cleaner party mode. 
Party mode means  that all public areas of our home get good solid cleaning, vacuming, dusting, etc.  Kitchen, ( Read more... )

The problem with being a Jew on Christmas is that it's B-O-R-I-N-G!!  Especially in Rockford ( Read more... )

The people... especially the people in the Shire of Blackhawk.  Even when I'm mad, even when there's drama, even when I think someone isn't doing quite as good a job as they could be, even when I'm clueless, even when I'm frustrated, I love these people.  The members of the Shire of Blackhawk are some of the kindest, most thoughtful, lend a hand, ( Read more... )

This is the night of the year that my kids crave, tonight... mom makes the latkes.   This year I'm being lazy and bought pre-shredded potatoes.  I don't have a food processor and shredding a five lb bag is murder on my hands, especially when it's so cold out.

Follow this link for pretty good Latke Instructions from the Utah Hillel.  This is pretty ( Read more... )

Stolen from howstuffworks.com

What is Hanukkah?
Hanukkah is an eight-night celebration. The Hanukkah celebration includes lighting the candles of the Hanukiyah (in English-speaking countries this is often called a Menorah, which is the Hebrew word for a candelabra) on each day of the holiday, playing with the dreidel, eating latkes ( Read more... )

Yesterday at work I got the information back from the Salvation Army for our Adopt-a-family.  I *love* doing adpot-a-family every year.  There wa smore than one year that the only reason the kids and I had a holiday at all was because of programs like this.  Now that life is more stable it gives me great pleasure to be able to help other families ( Read more... )

Hanukkah starts tomorrow night at sundown, and just like last year I'm on a frantic search for candles to put in the menorah.  This year however,  I let my fingers do the walking and  I found some in town.   Lat year I ended up having to go to Chicago for them!  Today I'll just swing over to Borders and pick them up.  Yay Borders!

Q: Can't you just ( Read more... )

I just can't wait until Tuesday night to start posting Hanukkah goodies, and considering the flood of Christmas stuff I see everywhere I look, I've decided that I don't have to.  I am however going to  bore you with educational snippets as well so that our gentile friends can further appreciate this holiday.

Q:  Why do Jewish Celebrations start the ( Read more... )

Well the big holiday weekend is over and I have 5 nights until Hanukkah.  I'm actually taking liberties with the date that we have our "big night" with a huge dinner and pressies.  Usually we get together and celebrate on the 1st Night of Hanukkah, but since I'm not quite ready for it, I'm moving our party to the 4th night.  It's so nice to be able ( Read more... )