traditions

50-50 – Birthday Traditions

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I usually like to spend part of my birthday on my own. Since college, I have never worked on my birthday. The one time I did work-business for a new job, getting a physical and a drug test, I almost got into a car accident. Never again. 

I get up. I take a shower. I wear my favorite clothes. Today, I will wear my favorite boots and jacket. On years that my driver’s license is due, I go for a haircut and then go to DMV for a new picture on my new license.

There is a local, fancy strip mall that is more boutiques than strip mall that I like to spend the day at. The first week in December is usually not too cold if I’m wearing a heavy sweater and snood and the sun is shining. I would wander in and out of stores, window shopping, grabbing a muffin or a tea, picking up trinkets and then replacing them on their shelves.

I try new things.

In recent years, while my kids are in school, I let my husband work and I head out to Starbucks for a couple of hours. I get my free drink and a cranberry bliss bar. I take myself shopping, usually for a new pocketbook or a new wallet. I go to Target and buy myself a Christmas ornament, sometimes a new notebook.

My mother used to give me money for my birthday, and this is how I would use it. The year after she died, my husband gave me a $50 Visa gift card so I could continue my ritual for my birthday despite my mom being gone. It was one of the nicest things he’s done for my birthday.

On the weekends, I usually spend the day with my family. Sometimes, I’ll go to Starbucks for breakfast alone, but the rest of the day we’re together.

This year, today, we’re going to the firehouse for a pancake breakfast, then the local airport for the Santa Fly-in, Fantastic Beasts at the movies, and dinner at Delmonico’s Italian Steakhouse. Cake and presents after.

I’m being unusually decisive for my 50th birthday. I’m very much an I don’t know kind of person, but not this year. The only other time that I was this decisive on my birthday was when I was pregnant with my first child.

I’m looking forward to turning 50. Honestly, I don’t know why. It’s not something that I’ve looked forward to – growing older, and while this is a chapter ending, it is also a chapter beginning.

This is my final reflection of the fifty I planned before my fiftieth birthday, and I plan to write another fifty next year, a bit more focused and a bit more consistent.

I’m looking forward to what’s to come, and that in itself is unusual for me. It feels like a good thing, though.

50-45 – Chanukah

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Plastic dreidl that can be filled with gelt, chocolate coins for Chanukah. When I was a kid, we got new ones each year, but I try to save them for my kids to reuse each year. (c)2016

When I was a kid growing up in Queens, we lived in a two bedroom apartment. There was a tiny vestibule where you could either go upstairs to our neightbors or turn left and walk into our place. There was a window and a radiator (where on Passover we would put a wine glass for Elijah). The living room had a sofa, a television on a wheeled TV cart, a dresser, my baby dresser that my daughter now uses, and possibly a chair, but I don’t recall that detail. It flowed into the dining room which had a doorway to the kitchen.

At Chanukah, we never had an electric menorah when we lived here. It was a brass one with a lion at the back and the shamas way up on top with a row of eight candle holders below. We would set this menorah up on the dining room table on a piece of tin foil for the wax to melt onto. Each day, we’d add another candle and watch them burn brightly until they flickered out.

We’d eat latkes and play dreidl with pennies for the pot.

Along the bottom of my baby dresser, my parents set up three piles of wrapped presents, eight gifts in each pile, and every night after we lit the candles we could choose a gift. Just one.

There was a lot of shaking and feeling of shapes going on every night. I have a very clear memory of wondering if I should open the Barbie doll or her clothes first, so distinctive was their packaging.

For our interfaith family now, we usually have done one large gift for the first night of Chanukah. Only once did we do eight gifts. It just gets too expensive. We do light the candles and use an electric menorah, the candle menorah in the dining room and the electric menorah in the living room. I always get my kids a new dreidl and a mesh baggie of gelt which they devour pretty quickly.

These are the traditions that make a holiday memorable and worth celebrating year after year.

I’m posting this a bit early because Chanukah isn’t until Christmas Eve this year, but that just gives us more to celebrate all throughout the month from Thanksgiving to the New Year.

Happy Chanukah to all.

50-38 – Chinese Food

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While I love a good macaroni and cheese (Kraft blue box original), probably my next best comfort food is Chinese. It could be take-out, eat in, buffet, I don’t care. It is the best food in the world. It might even be my first go-to comfort food.

When I was a kid, we used to go to this place near our apartment. I don’t remember the name of it, but it was on Horace Harding Blvd. in Queens. It wasn’t brightly lit. That’s how we kids knew it was a fancy restaurant. My one vivid memory is being dressed up, so it may have been for some kind of school congratulatory meal. I remember the owner knew my parents. He’d greet us at the door and show us to our table, talking to my parents the whole time. My Dad was a friendly guy, and everyone loved him. It was like going to Cheers. 

We would sit at a large round table, covered with a white linen tablecloth. My parents would order: two from column A, one from column B, duck sauce and mustard. My mother put a dab of hot mustard in her wonton soup. I have never dared. Everything was put in the center and we shared, serving ourselves. This was the one place that no one ordered soda. We had a glass of water and of course, the hot tea. I loved those small tea cups, and I would put in more sugar than I should have. I think that was where I got my love for drinking tea. For dessert it was always either vanilla ice cream or pineapples with a fortune cookie. I would get the pineapples, but I think I only got them because they came with a toothpick that I used to pick up the small chunks of pineapple.

We used to bring Chinese take-out to my grandmother’s house sometimes. My grandmother’s house was kosher, so she never ate any of the food, and she made us eat on paper plates because we couldn’t put the non-kosher food on hers. We had to sit in the dining room and eat, and then clean up and take all of our leftovers with us.

As an adult, it took us a couple of years to find our perfect Chinese take-out place in our new town. My barometer is the fried rice, the egg rolls, and the spare ribs.I like really fried rice, brown in color with nice chunks of pork. My egg rolls also need to have little bits of pork in it and a nice crunchy shell. Spare ribs – the more burned, the better.

There is something warm and comforting about the smells and tastes of Chinese food. I really don’t know what it is.

My husband’s family has a tradition of eating Chinese take-out on Christmas Eve, and so we’ve adopted that for our family. We even have a Chinese take-out box ornament for our tree. Our kids know it, and look forward to it each year. It is a really nice tradition and ritual for them. They get a new pair of pajamas; we eat Chinese take-out, and we bake cookies for Santa.

It’s warm and wonderful.

50-20 – Temple

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I recently found myself in Temple for my friends’ daughter’s Bat Mitzvah.It is at once familiar and strange to me. As a child, I went to shul or school twice a week, but there were no services with them. It was the learning of the language, the history, the tradition, and I loved it. I went with my cousins who were my best friends and neighbors. When we all moved, they to Florida, we to Long Island, I went to a more religious center that I did not like, but was lucky enough to find my old teacher, Mr. Baran and went back to the traditional school that I loved so much.

This recent time in Temple was more enriched by my attending Catholic Mass than any other thing I can think of. I suddenly understood some of the ritual that was never explained to me as a child.

When the Cantor sang, Oh-ya-say-Shalom-bin-romav, I began to sing along. I was amazed to discover that I knew every word, and wished that the song would go on forever because it brought me to a childhood place that I thought was lost.

It reminded me of the High Holidays in Queens. The High Holiday services required tickets. All of us children were left in the parking lot while our parents went in to pray at the multi-hour service. I was one of the older kids at seven or eight.

We stayed on the warm asphalt, playing jump rope and hopscotch in our Saturday best. For a long time I thought  I made up this memory, but in talking to my cousins recently they remember it exactly the way that I do, so it must have happened. We were left to our own devices and on occasion someone would come out from the temple and shush us. We had the foresight to look chagrined, but as soon as the doors closed again, we went right back to our playing, eventually getting loud enough for someone else to come out and chastise us.

It was like that every year until we moved.

Travel – Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania

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When my husband and I were dating, I discovered that he disliked and disparaged Valentine’s Day. Very disappointing to a newly dating girlfriend. He did have the odd affection for Groundhog’s Day, and chose to celebrate that instead. We were the only family out to dinner for the groundhog and staying in for the holiday of hearts.

He thought it was pretty cool that one of my closest college friends grew up visiting Punxsutawney often where her grandparents lived. It’s still a big deal in her family, as evidenced by her Facebook now that we’ve reconnected.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Groundhog’s Day with Bill Murray and Andie McDowell.

Pop culturally, one of my favorite episodes of Supernatural is Mystery Spot which plays on the same theme as the movie, relegating Sam Winchester to relive his Tuesday over and over again.

Every year, we wake up early, long before school, and check on Phil’s prediction. Will spring be early or will spring be late?

Tune in tomorrow morning, bright and early to find out!

Next year, think about taking a mid-winter vacation. Check out these websites for more information:

The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club
Visit PA

Birthday Greetings

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It’s been not quite, but very nearly forty-eight hours since my birthday had begun and then passed. I kept to my usual weekday birthday rituals that seem boring and usual but give me the birthday peace I welcome. I like to spend most of the day alone, usually a couple of hours at Starbucks but this year I really, really wanted French toast. I also go shopping, some window, some not. My mom used to give me money so I kind of like to keep that tradition alive when I can. This year had the added component of live blogging my day on Instagram, which wasn’t as odd as I had anticipated. I’m also indulging in a writing/spiritual retreat next weekend as my birthday gift to myself (with my family’s help and support, of course.)

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Birthday Camel

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Pine Away nail polish from Sinful Colors

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My favorite shirt

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and kick ass boots

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Cracker Barrel's White Chocolate Triple Berry Stuffed French Toast

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Annual birthday ornament and candy

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Eggnog Steamer with raspberry and whipped cream

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Fangirls Night Out Birthday Presents: Charlie Bradbury from Supernatural and Maggie Greene (my Halloween cosplay) from The Walking Dead

The Holiday Season Begins

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With the liturgical year having ended nearly a week ago, thus began the Catholic New Year and the season of Advent, the time for waiting for the Nativity of Our Lord. For someone new to the faith, I often compare my old views and beliefs with my new, Catholic ones. I had seen Advent calendars growing up, but I didn’t really understand their significance. I had thought of it as a countdown to Christmas, but in a secular, Santa Claus is coming to town sense. There are many secular versions of Advent calendars – calendars filled with chocolates, Lego Advent calendars, Starbucks has a chocolate candy calendar that comes with a $5 gift card. I also never associated it with beginnings, but rather endings since it comes at the end of the year. We had our Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, but it never occurred to me that there was a parallel time for the Catholic year. I had assumed that our secular calendar was a Christian calendar, and it had been set up long ago and adapted after the birth of Christ.

Now, I know that the religious year comes to an end in much the same way the Jewish year does, and Advent is the beginning of that new year. After celebrating a proper Advent last year I look at it more as a companion to Lent, although less somber – more anticipatory, more joyous, but also an opportunity to look at the past year and make some changes in whatever way that seems appropriate. Change is good, so a time of reflection before the family centered times of the holidays – presents, dinner, dessert, church, and family get togethers.

One other thing I and many other people think is that the twelve days of Christmas are the twelve days preceding Christmas Day but it is actually the twelve days after – the days between Christmas Day and Epiphany, or Three Kings Day. During the Middle Ages, this day was called Twelfth Night, and that was the traditional day to give and receive gifts. The Advent season goes from the first day of the new year until Christmas Day, and the Christmas season goes from Christmas Day until the feast day of Our Lord’s Baptism. It was startlingly to recognize that the Christmas season began with Jesus’ birth, and hadn’t ended with it.

It really is quite a profound change in perspective.

Our last few Christmases have been a little more low key as the kids get older and the toys get quieter. They sleep a tiny bit later, and they anticipate and expect our family traditions every year just a little bit more, looking forward to each one almost as a separate holiday. Chinese take-out for Christmas Eve dinner. Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks for Christmas Day breakfast. Roast beef for dinner, and Doctor Who with dessert. In more recent years, they have gotten used to Mom’s church traditions of the Nine Lessons and Carols, the Christmas Eve Vigil and wondering when the tree will go up. We celebrate Chanukah, and they are always surprised to get a new dreidl and a bag of chocolate gelt even though they receive both yearly. Christmas Day comes with a phone call to their cousins and Grandma, a couple of texts and Facebook posts, and quiet time with their siblings, the oldest counting down until he’s spent enough time in the living room and can sneak back to his bedroom.

In this time there is also the Novena of the Feast of the immaculate Conception. This is the patron of my parish, and so we recite the novena daily. I had planned to include a daily rosary recitation during this week, but instead of looking on it as failing, I will instead look at it and try to do better for the rest of the nine days. The Novena prayers conclude with Mass on December 8th for the Feast of the immaculate Conception.

This week (yesterday to be precise) although not a milestone, it was my birthday. Forty-nine. It celebrates the ending of my forty-ninth year, and begins my fiftieth. I’m hesitant for fifty, although I think it’s more self-fulfilling anxiety because somehow I’m supposed to be upset by it. I wasn’t upset by forty. Or 42, although everyone who knows me knows that was a year celebrated as my Douglas Adams birthday. Forty-one gave me issues. I feel like I should commemorate fifty, so I am, but I’m not sure how I’ll feel at the end of next year.

As the days pass I’m sure that I’ll figure out my feels – happy, scared, and everything in between – and share them with you. I am planning on a year long reflection journey; I’m still not sure if it will be daily or weekly or weekly with an occasional influx of daily.

I am also entertaining the idea of some kind of pilgrimage in regards to the Jubilee Year of Mercy as announced by Pope Francis, but I’m still not finished on deciding what I want to get out of it. I don’t want to do it just to say I’ve done it. I only know that when Pope Francis mentioned it, it struck me in the heart as something calling to me.

Monday’s Good for the Soul – Ecclesiastes 3:1-14

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There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.

A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

What advantage has the worker from his toil?

I have considered the task which God has appointed for men to be busied about.

He has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into their hearts, without men’s ever discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done.

I recognized that there is nothing better than to be glad and to do well during life.

For every man, moreover, to eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of all his labor is a gift of God.

I recognized that whatever God does will endure forever; there is no adding to it, or taking from it. Thus has God done that he may be revered

[Version: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__PKY.HTM]
[See also: The Byrd’s Turn, Turn, Turn, written by Pete Seeger]

Passover

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Friday is Good Friday. It is also the first night of Passover.

When I decided to go ahead and follow my conscience to be baptized and to become Christian and join the Catholic Church, I made the commitment to continuing to observe many of the Jewish customs that I had grown up with. Not to make too fine a point of it, but my kids are still Jewish, and for me my Catholicism is a very organic and logical extension of my own Jewishness.

This was my third observed Lent, my first after my baptism. I’ve had no problem abstaining from meat on Fridays and giving up something. For two years, it was Diet Coke and this year it was the McDonald’s Breakfast Burrito. The burrito holds a place in both my stomach and my heart as an amazing breakfast food as well as a fond memory of my first teaching job.

As a kid, Passover wasn’t terribly easy, but it also wasn’t terribly hard. We gave up bread, pasta, rice, certain vegetables and that meant that we truly gave them up. Nowadays you can practically eat anything and it’s kosher for Passover; even cake, and sandwich rolls. When my kids were really little, I bought the cereal (the box was tastier) and the potato chips without corn syrup. They hated all of it, so we went back to buying nothing but matzo and potato pancake mix.

This year, though we’ll be traveling to my mother-in-law’s, and it’s Holy Week, and Easter is Sunday, which isn’t usually a problem since I’ve abstained from chocolate and cake and anything not allowed.

But this year, I just don’t feel it.

I didn’t feel Rosh Hashanah, probably because the kids had school and I let them go.

I did observe Yom Kippur, but Chanukah was forgotten most of the week with everyone’s crazy afterschool schedules and my son’s work. We don’t do eight presents because that gets too expensive, but we do always get dreidls, gelt and potato pancakes. Except this year, I didn’t make any.

I’m not depressed; it’s not that, but I’m not feeling it.

I feel the importance of Passover; of the Exodus, but the joy of the Exodus is blended and jumbled with the joy of the Resurrection, and the latter seems more important even though it’s not a competition.

I feel guilty. It’s more than I don’t wanna also, but it both feels wrong to observe and wrong to ignore. I need to sort out a compromise for myself that is both emotionally satisfying and religiously authentic.

The customs and traditions were always important to me, and I don’t want to lose or forget that part of myself. It may take some time until I find the balance that I’m looking for.