It just isn’t right…

Yes, another grinchy rant about Chanukah!

Why is it that Chanukah is the absolutely, hands-down easiest holiday, the holiday that requires absolutely the lowest investment in time and energy out of the entire year… yet it comes at a time of year when it is often physically impossible to even go into the garden???

I mean, if I was ranking them, Pesach would be the hardest chag. And what’s happening right about then in the garden? Full-on planting season!!! Two years in a row, I have had to rush to get peas in the ground before Pesach, because the year before, I waited ‘till afterwards and the peas, naturally, came up later than everybody else’s.

Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, etc., are right in the middle of harvest and tomato season and Sukkos… well… Sukkos is when we build the big plywood hut in our driveway, totally barring access to the backyard and garage. If it’s nice weather, the tomatoes ripen and burst. If it’s cold and yucky, they wither and die… without me.

Even Purim! Baking, baking, costumes, shlach manos to pack… and SEEDS, seeds crying to be started, dropped into little peaty pots. If I don’t do it, they won’t be mature enough to plant out two months later.

The only chag with no conflict between Judaism and the garden is Chanukah… and guess what else? It’s also the only time of year people think about buying you gifts!

Who’s going to think of buying more Plant Nannys or Seed-Starting Trays or special watering gimmicks when the ground is frozen over… not to mention the pricey perennials that make your mouth water six months later. I bet nobody (in Canada, at least) was ever gifted with a rain barrel or hose wand for Chanukah.

No, it’s exactly wrong, wrong, wrong. And I intend to do something about it! Starting next year, I’m moving Pesach to midwinter – who wouldn’t love starting the seder at 4:30 in the afternoon? (in fact, a lot of people already do!)

And then we’ll celebrate Chanukah in early spring, like civilized garden-persons. Plant and rake and hoe, spread compost and scatter seeds by day… and cozy up in the still-cool evenings with a plate of latkes and the magical glow of candles flickering in the windows.

Comments

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page. As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi! If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi! If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah : the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science : Plants, Animals, Human Body Math Ambleside : Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature Science General Poems for Elemental Science . Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful. Three pages are included: one page with two po

Are Jews an "underrepresented community" in children’s publishing?

I applied for a writing award yesterday. I'm not going to get it, but that's not what I wanted to share with you. Here's what I wanted to share. This box: I stared at this box for a long, long time. And then I decided not to check it. Even though I believe people like me truly are underrepresented, we probably wouldn’t fit the definition in other people's minds. Why? Well, because we're European. Because we are white. Because as everybody knows, Jews control the media. (do we???) If anything, some people say, Jews are over -represented in publishing. And yet. Some definitions are careful not to include people like me. Like this random definition from the State of California which defines underrepresented for some very specific business purposes as: "an individual who self-identifies as Black, African American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Alaska Native, or who self-identi

Adventures in Mama-Land

Search This Blog