Eight Crazy Nights

A traditional Chanukah routine is the same each evening: light candles, sing prayers, open a gift, eat latkes, open a window and go to sleep. Eight nights in a row can get monotonous. So, in our house, we spice up the miracle of lights by assigning each night a particular theme.

--The first night of Chanukah is something to behold. Our house smells of organic latkes and olive oil, children get high on chocolate gelt and Mommy spikes eggnog so we all get along. The theme of the evening is fun which means my kids get a gift that has no redeeming social value. I try to think happy thoughts even as Furby snatches my last nerve. The eggnog helps.

--In an attempt to make up for the previous evening’s debauchery, we stomp on our boys’ buzz by pelting them with pants and socks for practical night. I get super-strength, industrialized undergarments and Marc smiles at a Target tie.

--Everyone gets a book on Day #3. One of the children picks at latkes with thinly veiled hostility and suggests a cookbook for Mommy next year. Eggnog still helps.

--We’re only allowed to exchange homemade presents tonight. I usually produce an editorial that incites an epic battle between family members. The boys make something that could be classified as interpretive art and my husband whips up a poem at the last minute like this classic from 1995: “Roses are red; Violets are blueish. If it wasn’t for Christmas, we’d all be Jewish.”

--The fifth night of Chanukah is reserved for those less fortunate. No, the Republican Party doesn’t count. Another buzz kill for the boys as we bust open piggy banks and demand twenty percent.

--By now I’ve served the last of the latkes and everyone receives a complementary tube of Tums. Our focus is on educational toys that will get the boys into Harvard. No pressure.

--“It’s still Chanukah?” We don’t want to see another potato until St. Patrick’s Day. Our gift this evening must benefit the entire household so I pretend to be overjoyed with steak knives and a few Calphalon pots.

--By the eighth evening, I’m letting our boys balance lit menorahs on their foreheads. Go to town, kids. The gift this last night of Chanukah is anything of their choice which usually means more action figures. These same action figures will disappear within a week, not to be found again until I plop down on the sofa one night at just the right angle. I’ll yelp, sounding like a Pomeranian getting porked, reach underneath to find Hans Solo and his strategically placed light saber.

Finally, a gift we can all enjoy.