Hanukkah/It Couldn't Hurt

Ahhh Yenta, you are so very wise!!   I've never found a person who gets offended by a heartfelt message, even if the message doesn't impact them personally.    We all simply have to be our authentic selves and pass along a message of peace, love and happiness!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Kwanza to you!!

Aimeelyn dawlink, I'm kvelling!  That means I'm choked up with pride for you, bubeleh.  And it's not that I am wise by any means, dear; as my grandson says, I've been around the block a couple of times.  This white wash thing that I'm hearing people do is, you should forgive the expression, vacoct!  I don't think I need to explain that word, do I?  Oh, Ellen is here and said I should spell it so you'll understand better: vacocked.  What would I do without my neighbor!  Thank G-d I'm a snowbird!

And thank you for your response dawlink.  I was beginning to think no one was reading these things I was writing except Mardy and Ellen.  Happy Festivest to all!

Sweet Yenta,

In case you missed it, I have read your postings, and I commented on them on Facebook...but I will reiterate what I said here...I LOVE them!!!!!  Keep them coming.

I am Jewish by birth, Christian by choice.  We light a menorah, but we do not quite go into all the celebrating that you do.  We put up a Christmas Tree and Celebrate the Birth of Jesus, afterall...I am married to a Minister.  I also celebrate my son's Birthday on Christmas Day.  After many, many years of trying to get pregnant and being told that I would NEVER have children, the Lord decided to bless us with a Son and he was born on Christmas Morning.  I know have 4 beautiful Children, our son, and 3 beautiful daughters.

So, again, keep the faith...and keep the postings coming!  Happy Chanukkah to you and yours.

Tammy

I was raised atheistically in the mountains of Colorado, which was my father's 'thing'.  My Grandmother lived in a house attached to ours and she was Christian, and my mom went on to become Catholic after I was an adult.  I'm grateful that my Dad, who had been raised Protestant of some sort but attended Catholic schools in Chicago, wanted me to have that as something I came to on my own.  As part of my severe health challenge that occurred when I was 29, the answer to my meditative question one day of 'why did this happen to me' has led me on a wonderful spiritual journey.  I enjoy learning about people's spiritual and religious beliefs to some extent, but I REALLY enjoy learning about the effects of spirituality on people's lives.  Including their health.  So I'm thrilled to see the response to the Yenta we've created for Lumigrate.  "Yenta" and I started working on this about a month before Thanksgiving and put it up right before Thanksgiving -- just in time for the holidays!  It actually grew out of my blatant blundering of understanding of Yiddish in conversations previously, and realizing how fun and wise this wonderful resource was to me and wanting to have that available for the many people on Lumigrate who can benefit as well.

In my family growing up, we'd go cut a sadly tree off the property to allow the better to get healthier to be more disease resistant, decorate it with the family heirloom decorations and shop for a few presents.  Our house was visibile from the country road so we'd open the curtains and Dad even put outdoor decorations up for a while.  My parents retired to New Mexico and started a love of chili pepper decorations which my sister also has been 'into' in the past -- and they'd leave those lights up all year long, which was fun!  We'd look forward to my mom's cousins coming up from Denver to celebrate with their 'mountain cousins'. They were kind of fancy 'city people' and the packages were always wrapped so beautifully and it just was FUN.  We'd eat and then open gifts and have desert and then send them on their way waving out our window with both arms largely and them flashing their lights and honking so it would echo in the canyon too! 

Through moving and 'moving on by passing on', only my sister and I and Dad remain from that bunch so things have changed a lot.  Last Christmas my father was in the hospital for what was the first of several times now, and we're really not focusing much on making Christmas anything but having the pleasure of being together this year.  There's a new baby in the family this year for the first time in about 45 years so that's pretty neat.  Three years ago I wasn't able to journey 'home' because of just having surgery and a horrendous Colorado snow that made the roads 'not worth the risk of busting everything loose' basically.  Fortunately my hand therapist and his wife were also not able to travel for the holiday and had me over for dinner and another friend was in town visiting family and came over in the evening and it ended up being a memorable Christmas.  My family was dealing with so much snow shoveling back where I moved from that they didn't even celebrate I think! 

On Christmas Eve my mom would light a candle that was on a stick that had been lit every year since before she was born.  With her passing 27 years ago, my family quit decorating and the candle hasn't been out since.   This year I'm going to start my own tradition along those lines -- inspired by Yenta and in talking with Tammy/above about candles recently (as some have health hazards but the overall process of connection to the element of fire has such appeal to me and has health perspectives that can be very positive in 'integrative medicine'.

It was economical to have lasagna but in later years we went to more traditional foods.  Nowdays our family meals are interesting -- we have vegetarians, people that can't have wheat, dairy, etc....  so we adapt and after so many years of it, it's 'normal'.  But I'm grateful for the memories of the holidays past with my family intact and in such a beautiful setting. The last two years when the snow snowed me in here, I spent the holiday with loved ones that I know just from living where I do and in both cases had an awesome time and it was so interesting to see how different families celebrate Christmas.  One is a family that descended from an immigrant to a rural area nearby before 1918 and it was held in the rock house the grandfather had built about 1920 or so.  Last year I was part of Pablo Blanco's Southern family's Christmas they held here -- and we had SNOW for the girls to build a snowman and get a wonderful family photo of everyone together (since I was there to photograph!).  I truly enjoy the diversity AND melding of my own traditions and morphing them as time goes on. 

I'll look forward to what others write here as well.  Thanks everone -- you're blessings to all who follow when you write. And so maybe THIS is the beginning of a new tradition, for people to come here and write about their holidays and thoughts about the significance of the season on their health, as part of integrative medicine's inclusion of 'spirituality' as part of wellness.

Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being .... ~~ Mardy 

Tammy bubeleh, again I'm kvelling!  I'm so happy you made a choice that fits you.  When my children were had their Bat Mitzvahs they each had "the talk".  "You now have your basis, you've fulfilled your obligation and now your journey begins.  You have my blessing.  Explore other religions, learn all you can and find what makes you happiest, comfortable and gives you what you're looking for."  Each of my daughters looked at me as though I had three heads.

My eldest became Orthodox, my middle daughter doesn't practice any religion at all and my youngest is a Reform Jew after learning about Bapists, Lutheran, Catholosism, Roman Catholic.  Please forgive me if I mispelled any of them.  As I want for my own kindeleh (children), I desire for all; peace, understanding and tolorance.  I've seen too much and experience too much hate to think otherwise.  My thanks to Ellen again for her help putting the words together.

Tammy, your husband is a very lucky man to have you at his side.  Please tell him your Yenta said so.  And G-d bless you and all your children.  You are a very blessed!  Merry Christmas dawlink!

Your Yenta

Mardy dawlink, you are a long distance daughter to me.  Those were wonderful accounts to read and yes, traditions are always a good thing to have.  We strongly believe in them.  Though they do vary from family to family and from sect to sect we all have our way of celebrating.

I'm very happy you enjoy the Yiddish.  I started to hold back on it a bit since I wasn't getting much of a response from people but if you feel it's important I'll put it in more.  I didn't realize what I wrote was going to stir so many.

Mardy bubeleh, our friends become our family.  Believe me, I know this.  I lost a lot of my family many years ago and friends such as Esther and Marvin are as a sister and brother to me.  My neighbor, Ellen, is a daughter, her family is my family or as we say in Yiddish, Mishpuchah (Mish Puk Ha).  It reminds me a bit of an old movie with Jimmy Stewart, "Harvey" where he invites anyone he meets over to his house for dinner or out to a local bar for a drink.  Nice man.  Oops!  Excuse me, Fibro fog once again.

I must go make latkes (oy vey I'm getting tired of those things).  I'm going to go pick up a chicken from the supermarket though and make my job a little easier, THEN the candle blessings. 

Happy Festivest!  Merry Christmas!  Happy Hanukkah!

Your Yenta