Thursday, December 2, 2010

Happy Hanukkah

Ahhh - December.  The annual month where Marc and I ponder and discuss and analyze for hours, trying ot balance out his Jewish family traditions with my hodge podge Christian/Pagan traditions.  The one guaranteed date night - we combine shopping with dinner and generally, we end up bringing at least our youngest one (whichever one happens to be the youngest) with us.  Hanukkah is early this year, starting on 12/1, so we had to jump into celebrating way before I was really in the mood.  So far, so good though.  We had the first night last night and had a bunch of people over to celebrate with us.  I like having people over - and this house seems to be designed for entertaining.  We've got the big dining room table, big open kitchen/living room combo.  I've got at least five menorahs currently going - and there's one more hiding somewhere in my boxes of holiday decorations.  I'm thinking that we'll get the tree next week sometime.  I have to get a Baby's First Christmas ornament for Julianna. 

Christmas this year is a bit puzzling for me.  I've got a messy, messy extended family and navigating the holidays is always challenging.  I think this year, I'm going to go to the big family Christmas party, and then see my mother on Christmas Eve with the kids before going out for Chinese food with our friends.  Then on Christmas Day, I think I'm just going to stay home.  I'm going to make a big turkey dinner, I've invited over some friends for dinner and I'm really kind of looking forward to it.  It'll make the holidays easier for my mother too - but it'll also be nice to host my own Christmas dinner.   I'm still on the fence though, because not going down to my mother's house kind of freaks me out, so I might head down there that night.  I don't know if I'm ready to be all the way grown up - I still kind of want to go to my mom's house for Christmas. 

In other news... Julianna is sitting up, and according to my friend Sara, almost sort of crawled today.  In keeping with tradition, I didn't see it :-(.  She's getting so big so fast.  She's outgrown EVERYTHING.  She's in 12-18 month clothes now, and I'm still surprised by it.  We got Sam a big tool set last night, and he's spent most of the day building imaginary spaceships with it.  Jess got the camera she's been begging for - and she's so happy about it.  I'm just hoping she doesn't drop it and break it the first week.

2 comments:

JoEllen said...

Happy Hanukkah, Cohen family!!

your holidays sound so full and festive. i want to celebrate Hanukkah again with a family sometime, as i haven't had much exposure to my Jewish roots since my grandma died and she had stopped with many traditions by then.

Julie is getting so big! oh my goodness. we are thinking about getting Logan a tool set too, which one did you get for Sam? can't wait to see some of Jessie's pics!

Unknown said...

Come to Worcester next year! I'd love to light candles with you guys :-)