A CHANNUKAH WISH FOR YOU

Hi, everyone and thanks for your calls and emails. I'm sorry I wasn't online for a few days, but one of my kids got sick and I wasn't home while I played 'Nancy Nurse'. Today the kid is much better, but guess who caught the cold?

I am not ready to even think that perhaps it's the flu, as I took my life in my hands and had a flu shot. See, four people died from the flu shot in Israel...bad batch from France.

I don't know why we bought flu shots from France. But then again, I never understood why we bought gas masks from Germany!!! You love it? Can't you just see those Jews in their sealed rooms with German gas masks??? Oy!

Once I had the flu. I think it was the Asian flu. Boy was I sick. And as a present...a present...I was left afterwards with asthma! So, since then, my doctor wants me to take the flu shots. Never mind that now I am on the 'old lady' list of people who should get the shots. Me, and Bubbie Channah walk from her apartment up the street to the Kupat Cholim, the Health Clinic, and find a nice nurse who gives us the shots. Then we go and share a sandwich and have some coffee while we wait in the lobby to make sure we don't have any reaction.

What has all this got to do with a Channukah wish for you? Good question. So, yesterday, sick as a dog, with, ahem, a bad cold, I was waiting for my next student to show up, when the buzzer rang downstairs.

'A little early,' I thought and buzzed her in. Instead of my student there was a man with a huge...make that humungous package of goodies. And all for me and mine.

The Guv, bless her, sent us all a Channukah gift. Wanna know what we got? Sure you do!!! So, we got three bottles of wine, and a cute apron that has the instructions how to make potato latkes on it, and a huge chocolate chip cake, and Chris....Channukah cookies. You remember those cookies. Sugar cookies? I ate three before I opened up the rest of the boxes. The cookies are delicious with sprinkles of chocolate or just sugar and are in the shape of stars, dreidles and menorahs.

And a big box of dried fruit and nuts. And another big box of chocolate covered nuts and jelly beans. Jelly beans! And another box of mixed chocolates. Honestly, the package measured from my fingertips to my elbow!!!

So, quickly I picked up the phone and called the Guv. 'Yahooooo! Thank you! Are you nuts? You shouldn't have! Boy, wait till you see what I've got here!'

Wait! There's more! Bubbie Channah got a package of goodies too! Don't ask the excitement as like little kids we opened up our packages and looked to see what was inside.

I always wondered what Christmas morning was like. Couldn't be better than what went on here yesterday!!!

When I was little, Bubbie Channah told me about her one and only Christmas. When she was about five and her sister was four, they went to their mother and asked to put up Christmas stockings, like the other children in the neighbourhood. Their mother smiled and said that they could. The next morning when they ran downstairs and grabbed their stockings, they were dismayed to see them filled with old potatoes and onions.

'That is what Santa Claus brings Jewish children,' my grandmother told them.

Pretty harsh, I always thought. But she made her point. We never had a Channukah bush in our house.

See, I don't think that Christmas is any better a holiday than Channukah, it just has better press.

When we were growing up in Windsor, ours was the only house on the block that didn't have coloured lights and decorations all over the front of the house and on the trees in the yard. Ours was the only house that had a little menorah in the window which did it's best to compete with the fancy trees shining from the other windows. I always was asked to sing 'the token dreidle song' in the midst of the Christmas party at school.

Like my Dad, AH always said, 'It's hard being a Jew.'

The Guv, bless her, wanted to share Channukah joy with her Israeli family. And joyous it was and still is. The stuff is spread out all over my dining room table, and everyone who walks by grabs a handfull of whatever they fancy. Now, isn't that something?

Then, as I climbed into bed with a hot cup of tea and waited to watch the next episode of Survivor, the phone rang and it was the Beauty from The Bald and The Beautiful, another dear, wonderful friend from Windsor.

She called to say hello and wish us a happy Channukah. Beauty then said something that stopped me short. She said, 'I wish you a year of Miracles.'

WOW!!! Tears sprang to my eyes. That is the best wish anyone has ever wished me. Just think, a year of Miracles!

And to you and yours also Beauty, to you and yours.

So, my wonderful friends, as Channukah is about to come once again into our homes tomorrow and we light the first candle and eat our first potato latkeh and sufganiyah ( doughnut ), let me wish you a table full of sweets, love from friends both near and far, and to you and yours from me and mine, I wish you a Happy Channukah and a year of Miracles!

Have a great day...stay safe...and thanks for dropping in.