In my experience, non-Jews like Hanukkah more than Jews. I don’t know why that is, but for my divorced parents that certainly was the case. My mother, who grew up Episcopalian, loved Hanukkah so much she made latkes for my classmates every year. My father, who was raised by parents named Ruth and Israel, would have skipped it every year if he could have.
Whereas the Rabbi Adam Sandler clearly dictates you get eight crazy nights of presents, we got only one gift, and it would probably be something my dad bought from Costco, which we would watch him buy during our biweekly trip, which he would later wrap loosely in a brown paper grocery bag, which is impressive because we only shopped at Costco where there are no grocery bags. My father made it clear to us at every opportunity that this annual parade of joy would last only until our bar mitzvahs, at which point we would be adult members of the family, expected to make our own money and with no need for gifts.
“Hanukkah is a kids holiday,” he would tell us. “It doesn’t even appear in the bible!” This recited like a prayer as he handed us our brown paper packages. My sister Rosie tore into hers, but I was in no hurry. The inadequately wrapped box lay in front of me on a kitchen table that folded, inside an apartment that was rented, on a street in a part of town where poor kids lived. It was so unlikely this gift would increase my quality of life that it barely seemed worth the effort. Over time, I had grown accustomed to disappointing gifts. In early November I would hand my father a printed wishlist, in clear font with highlighted priorities -- I was just trying to make it easy for him -- and he would laugh and get back to hand-washing his Geo Prism. His choices always confused me, pulling from a different list, never brand-name and serving no purpose in my childhood quest to raise our social status. Among his offerings,
A beeswax candle kit
A VHS tape compilation of TV commercials from the 1950s
A published edition of the Guinness Book of Word Records from the previous year
An obscure Japanese puzzle game with directions in Japanese, a language I do not speak
One year my Hanukkah gift was so large, it had to be kept in the basement. Dad led me down the stone steps, cautioning me to watch my head, reassuring me that it was a special treat to visit the basement without shoes on. He pulled chain, illuminating the one exposed lightbulb, and paused for my reaction as I saw the one Hanukkah gift I would get that year: a used rowing machine.
“You said you wanted to start exercising,” he said, confusing me for someone else, another son perhaps who he actually loved.
The ironic thing? In my senior year of college, I served a semester as coxswain on the rowing team.
Just kidding, I went to Brandeis. I used my rowing machine a few times before deciding to give up on sports and social climbing. A year later, when my father sold the house, it ended up on the trash pile with everything else not worth moving.
This one is kind of a bummer, but the second night is always kind of like that.
Funny😁