I lit the first candle of the menorah and ate the first potato latkes of the holiday, so it really does feel like Chanukah. I got particularly pretty candles this year - expensive, hand-decorated ones. It does seem silly to spend extra money on something that's just going to melt away, but they're not a lot more and they make me happy.
The latkes were, alas, frozen ones and not my mother's, but I'm too lazy to spend all day grating potatoes. They have to be grated by hand for the texture of the latkes to come out perfectly. You can imagine what grating the onion by hand does for the tear glands, too. So it's a box of Ratner's from the supermarket and it just has to be good enough though they don't use Mom's secret ingredient. (If I told you what that was, it wouldn't be a secret ingredient, now would it?)
I still have to deal with other seasonal things, alas. I need to find a box for the soaps I bought for gift exchange at my company party next week, for example. Usually I do some sort of odd whte elephant thing, but I saw these hand-made soaps with a "support our troops" logo at a crafts store, which I thought quite suitable. I also really need to write Christmas cards. Especially since I got one from a friend in L.A. with a long, chatty, hand-written letter, which demands a reply in kind. There's a bit of knitting I need to finish (which will be quick, but I've just been procrastinating) and that also means a trip to the post office. And, of course, there are cookies to bake.
Copyright 2006 Miriam H. Nadel