חנכה or חנוכה

This year at Newberry Drive, we will be celebrating Hanukkah in an effort to expose ourselves and our children to different traditions celebrated throughout the world at this time of year.

There are two reasons for this:

Numero uno: When I met Michael almost two years ago, I came face to face with a suspicion that has been striving for years to become a realization: I don't know what I want to know, and I have not experienced what I want to experience. My opinions about life and knowledge are theoretical and never experienced. And I realized that understanding such a shortfall and doing nothing about it makes me a hypocrite...And a sorely self-disappointed one. So, also knowing I have a tendency to be only temporarily motivated, I sprung into action! Michael and I talked about it - he, without fail, holds me accountable to the ideas I lazily toss around.

And also: One of the things that makes Michael and I a strong parenting team was a discovery that came up in conversations about raising independent and aware children. We found that as parents we believe it is our job as parents to light and fan Curiosity's flame - appropriately and specifically termed for this holiday - for our children. If we can't do that much for them, we ultimately fail.

We are especially concerned about the * presence of Christianity during this time of the year. To put it bluntly, if our children choose to be Christians at some point in their lives, we want it to be because they know enough about the world and the spiritual choices it offers. Not because it is the largest religion in the world in more ways than one, and they can't escape it.

Though Michael and I have been talking about making this change in our lives for the past two years, I became especially motivated this year to make this change in our lives when I started looking for a menorah for our home. Now I realized that Christmas is Retail's dream come true, but I was sure there would be a menorah tucked away on the holiday isle at HEB or Walmart. They sell stockings, right? Nothing. We had to go to World Market to find a menorah and candles - World Market being the retail store selling "eclectic" stuff. I also saw one at Party Pig Super Store. What? Does any one else see the horrific irony in that?

We bought the menorah at World Market - since a plastic one from Party Pig was surly going to melt - and are now researching our new holiday. I can't promise I'll learn Hebrew in time and we do hope to have a Hanukkah potluck, but for the most part we would like to follow the traditions as best as possible.

So, we'll keep you posted on all of this as it unravels...