Rant #1,566: Hanukkah On Long Island

I welcome myself back to my perch today.

My week of hell continues today, as I have to get my temporary crown put on my tooth, the one I told you about last week.

I am really looking forward to telling the dentist that a piece of dental tool is in my tooth.

Please pray for me today at 12:30 p.m. EST.

I think I am going to need it.

Anyway, Hanukkah went well this year, as it pretty much always does.

We had our main celebration on Sunday, which showed the scattered nature of the holiday, and for that matter, our family.

The first part of the celebration was in the hospital in Suffolk County, where my father-in-law is, and has been for the past several months.

He has endured two broken hips, but is otherwise healthy in spirit and vigor.

We gave him his gifts there, basically clothing that he can wear there while recuperating.

The hospital, by the way, is a Catholic hospital, and he is probably one of a scattering of Jewish people being cared for there, but they seem to be doing a good job, so it really doesn't matter.

However, ironically, the hospital had its Christmas party on Sunday, which we went to for a brief spell, so we celebrated Christmas in the middle of our Hanukkah celebration, which was the right thing to do in this case.

Yes, that is Old Saint Nick checking in with my son, making sure he was good this year. I saw that my son wanted to tell Santa that he was Jewish, but I looked at my son, and we basically made eye contact that this was not the time nor the place for that declaration to be made.

So my son went with it, and we had a good giggle about it later.

In the photo below, that is my father in law with my brother in law and his wife. The other guy is Santa Claus, the same Santa who is with my son in the picture a couple of lines above. I have to give him credit, Santa sure moves fast during this time of year.

We left the hospital right after my father in law left the party to watch the Jets-Giants football game, and we had the second part of our celebration at home with my parents.

We lit the menorahs we had, exchanged gifts, and my mother made potato latkes that were out of this world.

If you don't know what a potato latke is, it is basically a potato, mashed up and fashioned into something of a circle, and cooked in oil. It is crunchy on the outside and mushy on the inside. It is a traditional food of the holiday, and you can have it with apple sauce, sour cream, sugar, or just plain.

I like it plain, and that is how I ate about 10 of them.

My father can't eat potatoes anymore because of their sugar content, so he had an alternative, with zucchini, and he ate up the entire thing.

Yesterday, after work, I saw my daughter, and we had a further celebration. The only bad thing was that my wife had to work late, so she missed it, but we had a good time.

We exchanged gifts, and ate the very untraditional pizza, along with a dessert of donuts, a dessert which is a traditional one for the holiday. I personally don't like jelly donuts--jelly donuts are traditional for the holiday--so we had chocolate donuts, which was a fine substitute.

We lit the menorah--my two kids lighting the menorah is a rare thing indeed--and everything went well.

My daughter then went to visit with her grandparents, and that was fun too.

And that was that.

The holiday still has six days to go, and my wife and I have a few gifts left for my son. We stretch it out, as it should be, because we found that one gift a night was just right for him. He gets overloaded if he gets more than one gift, not knowing where to turn.

Our celebration is not over. We will be picking up things on Sunday, at my sister's home, so the Hanukkah celebration doesn't stop during the eight-day festival of lights. The photo below was taken during Thanksgiving this year, but at least it has the my wife and kids in the photo with me.

So Happy Hanukkah from the Lapka family--all four of us--to those who celebrate the holiday, and I hope your celebration was as good as ours was.