Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Maybe I'll Get It Right by Day 8

It's a good thing that there are eight days of Hanukkah, because I've blown the first two, and I need to redeem myself on the remaining six. Last night was the first night, but hubby came home late, and Pumpkin was already ready for bed, so essentially we forgot. Bad. So tonight, Hubby is out at a basket ball game, so just Pumpkin and I were here to light the candles. In the midst of getting us fed, I completely missed the appropriate candle-lighting time, and did it too late. Next was the issue of the blessings that go with the candle lighting, which I don't actually know. I pulled out my copy of Judaism for Dummies (no joke), looked up the blessings, and attempted to sing the Hebrew version, since the musical aspect of it is more likely to attract Pumpkin's attention than an English prayer. The blessing was spelled out phonetically, but I still couldn't quite match it up to the tune, and wasn't confident that I knew the tune. Meanwhile, Pumpkin was looking at the candles and started singing, "Happy Birthday to you...", and then attempted to blow them out. To top it off, I had to blow them out before I was really supposed to because Pumpkin was being really bad, and I couldn't keep her away from the flames. Sigh, It was so much easier when there was only myself to disappoint.

9 comments:

motherbumper said...

75% is not a shabby grade when it comes to religion. I've totally blown Advent so far and I'll settle for 50%. What can I say? I'm an underachiever by nature (GenX can't be bothered to rule).

Melissa said...

ROFL! "Happy Birthday!" I LOVE this and her trying to blow out the candles! :D

naomicatgirl said...

The Happy Boy did that last year - tried to blow out the candles, and sang happy birthday! It doesn't help that his birthday is in December, though, I must say.

If you want to know what the blessing sounds like, i THINK this link might help:

http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/340059/jewish/Blessings.htm

(I can sing it for you too, if you like. But my voice isn't so wonderful.)

painted maypole said...

oh... tradition is nice but these funny stories will soon be part of your tradition, so cherish them!

Don Mills Diva said...

I'm pretty impressed that you are even making such a valiant attempt to keep tradition. We completely missed St Nicholas Day (hubby is dutch) have haven't been to Christmas mass in 3 years!

karengreeners said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
karengreeners said...

ok, i didn't even realize that hanukkah had started until i read it on someone else's blog; we light the candles hen we eat dinner, about an hour and a half after sunset, and we sing 'hanukkah, oh hanukkah' when we do light them, because i can't remember the prayers either.
but i had a baby two weeks ago - what's your excuse?
*kidding!*

petite gourmand said...

happy chanukah!

MLL said...

LOL!! Just make sure your dogs don't catch their tails on fire. One time our cat jumped onto the table where we had a candle lit and soon we smelled something burning....

Happy Hanukkah!

Marcia