Helpful Holiday Hints

Some of the things I learned this year in preparation for Hanukkah, Christmas, and other stuff that went on this month.

1.  Do not drop this.

"Cupcake Gems" = edible pearls.

If you drop the Cupcake Gems, the lid will break and the gems will spill all over the place.  It will be like that scene in The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob when the bad guys are chasing the not-so-bad guy through the bubble gum factory.  You can see from this post-disaster photo that only about one inch worth of these edible pearls actually escaped the bottle, and yet I am still finding gems about the kitchen.  Why do we even have these in the house?

Also, The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob is one of the funniest movies of all time.  According to my parents and brothers and me.


2.  If you want to send a mixed holiday message to your neighbors, put a sparkly sign saying "Believe" in your yard and then plant your vicious yipping dog in front of it.

Neighbor's cheery "Believe" sign with
small but vicious dog.
What are we supposed to believe?

3.  If someone gives you a gift of a dead person's chanukiah (menorah for Hanukkah), just say thank you, use it and don't ask questions.

A gift from a relative, who thought it would be nice for us
to have the chanukiah that belonged to recently deceased
resident of her retirement community.  It's a fine chanukiah.
Made in Israel and everything.

4.  Make cookies.  This is therapeutic.

Nutmeg Cookie Logs. 
Just this month, I discovered that
there is one other person in the universe who
makes these cookies.

5. If you have to go out of state to a funeral, leave notes.  Admonish your (adult) children to eat the leftovers that you spent two hours cooking. 

I didn't think I needed to admonish the children to bring in the mail and the newspaper.  Apparently they are not adult enough (yet) to know that these are things that you do when you are tending to your homestead.

6.  Appreciate and care for your pets.

The kids may not have brought in the mail,
but they did feed the fish.

7.  If you hear sirens, don't assume the worst.  It might just be Santa making a friendly tour of your neighborhood.

That stuff about Santa driving a sleigh?  Total  myth.

8.  Go to the funeral if you can. 

West Palm Beach, Florida

You don't get to pick where the funeral is going to be, but see if you can find beauty and life in the midst of your grief.  Two years ago, the funeral I attended in mid-December was in Canada.  This time it was in Florida.  If the funeral takes you near the ocean, make time to go down to the beach.  Nature can provide some solace.

9.  Take spiritual and/or actual light with you when you travel. 

 It turns out it is okay to take Hanukkah candles in your carry-on luggage.  It might even be okay to take matches, but we didn't take any chances on that, and found matches when we were there.  It was the last night of Hanukkah while we were away.  I believe that the tradition of lighting the chanukiah was comforting to us and our relatives.

10.  Keep calm when talking to the mechanic.

I should have given them a time limit on finding
things wrong with the car.

When it's four days before Christmas, and the mechanic tells you that there are eight different things wrong with your minivan, and two of them are vital enough that they need to be fixed before your next long trip, and those two alone cost more than $1,000, and the eight fixes don't even address the thing where the sliding door opens randomly, and while you were hoping to keep driving the car longer, but it has 124,000 miles on it, remain calm.  Tell your husband that it's time for a smaller car.


Dear Reader, what are your helpful hints for this busy holiday season?