A Perfect Way to End Hanukkah 2008

Being in a bi-religion marriage, Dusty and I have always tried to include both religions in our family life. We celebrate most of the major holidays in both our religions....he was raised Methodist and I was raised Jewish. Dusty has grown to truly love and enjoy many of the Jewish holiday traditions and food (just ask him about his love of gefilte fish.....and there are many Jews who won't touch the stuff!!) and sees it as very important that James be exposed to as much of it as possible! There are challenges to that, for sure, living where we do, as there are very few Jews here. The closest temple is more than an hour away and I was appalled to find that I was unable to even buy Hanukkah candles anywhere locally this year. Thank goodness for the internet!! And so, I do the best I can, with Dusty's help, to teach James about his Jewish heritage.
Years ago (perhaps when James was 3 or 4) Dusty told him that Jewish law stated that if your mother was Jewish, then you were Jewish. Even at that young age, James took that to heart and from that moment on any time he is asked, he proudly says, "I'm Jewish!" You can be certain that he's the only kid in Olathe, Colorado who knows the Yiddish words for sweetheart, head and thigh (OK, so Mom's knowledge of Yiddish is VERY limited, but I am making an attempt to pass it on!)!
We usually keep to ourselves, only occasionally sharing our holidays and foods with other family in the area. But this year I had written something about celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah here on my blog, and James' Cubmaster from Cub Scouts had sent me a comment about how great she thought it was that we did both, exposing James to both religions. She and her family are very involved in their church, and I thought they might be interested in experiencing Hanukkah, so we invited them for the last night.
What a wonderful evening we had! Their three boys where attentive and so polite as they took it all in.....the hebrew prayers and the meanings of all eight candles.



Kenny, James, Josh and Matt around the burning menorah.

Cindy reading, "Latkes, Latkes Good to Eat", a great kid's Hanukkah book to all the boys.

Homemade challah (egg bread) was part of the dinner.....Dusty made the dough and I finished it off with the traditional braiding. It came out quite nice, I thought!

We all settled in for a dinner of roasted chicken, latkes (potato pancakes) with sour cream and apple sauce, green beans and the challah. For dessert we had chocolate cake with raspberry sauce, which everyone seemed to enjoy. Maybe not your most traditional Jewish holiday meal, but the friendships that grew around those two tables warmed the souls as well as having the food fill our stomaches!

We were allowed adult visiting time, too, as the boys disappeared into James room to watch "Return of the Jedi".....so much for playing the dreidl game. Enough "lessons" for one night! The boys had so much fun together! What a very special family they have!! You can read more about them, if you're interested, as I follow her blog. It's posted on my blog page as "Cindy".

So a big thank you to Cindy and her family for allowing us to share our holiday and family traditions with you! We enjoyed every minute of our evening together and hope that there will be many more in the future. Here's to sharing with new friends!!

I actually took this picture on Friday night, which was the 6th night of Hanukkah. I had 8 nights to play with my camera and the burning candles. It was a struggle! But I did like the way this one came out, with the Christmas tree and part of our village in the background. I think it makes a good statement of what our family is about!!