I can’t believe 2007 is here; it seemed such a long way off in the 1940’s. I thought it would take forever for me to get here and become old, but it went fast and in the blink of an eye, here I am, 63 years of age!!

I was doing a lot of thinking about Chanukah over the years and remembering how simple Chanukah used to be. My Mom made latkes, gave us kids chocolate Chanukah gelt from Baracini’s, and used nuts instead of money as gelt with which to play dreidel. My brother and I each received one gift from our parents and for eight days we sang songs and my parents told us the story of Chanukah and how blessed we were by G-d’s miracle. My friend Michael told me that he received a gift each night. My family was financially poor and I can honestly say that out of all my friends from those days, I’m the only one that still is financially poor. We loved Chanukah. We didn’t concern ourselves with Christmas--- after all that was a holiday for the Gentiles and there were not many Gentiles in our neighborhood. We kids thought the majority of the world was Jewish, wasn’t it?

When we moved from Brooklyn to Flushing, Queens, our neighborhood had a wonderful mix of people of different religions and when Chanukah came we’d do the Jewish traditions. We’d now put the menorah in the window. We were proud of our heritage. We also were introduced to Christmas in this new neighborhood.

When I met my beautiful wife- to- be and spent Chanukah with her and her family everyone would get multiple gifts and she’d get one every night…a surprise to me; what a nice way to celebrate.

Arlene and I married, had two beautiful boys,( boyas, as my mom pronounced it with her strong Yiddish accent), and moved to Holtsville, Long Island. During Chanukah we did not see many menorahs in the window and as the children started going to school the question would be asked, are you a Christmas or a Hanukah? Our boys would always respond with pride…I’m a Chanukah. Our next move was to East Meadow, Long Island and our sons were 6 and 9 and wanted to know why we don’t celebrate Christmas. We explained the real meaning of Christmas and that it was not our holiday. So, Chanukah began taking on a new meaning in our home. I realized that all the bright colors were taken by the Christians, the red and green, and they even took multiple colored lights and put them all over their homes and had a tree with lights and shining hanging ornaments that dazzled your eyes. What colors were left for my kids? What dazzling displays? The electric menorah we had for the window had all yellow lights and the candles we lit in the house only burned a few hours and though they were of several different colors, didn’t have much pizzazz. Hey, Judaism is an older religion, started way before Christ came, shouldn’t we have had the pick of the colors? What is there about red and green that is so Christian—flowers can be red, evergreens are green, and how did they manage to monopolize those things that are those colors in nature. Why couldn’t we have the bells and the snow…it snows in Israel too. We had Hanukah Harry, Dreidel Dan and Latke Larry, all wearing a black coat, beards; and they had Santa Claus, wearing a Red Suit with a silver beard. Our holiday is about light yet we get the 8 and a shamash and they get 1000 lights.

I was thirty at the time and even though we retold the story, which by the way is in the Apocrypha, not the Bible and is mentioned in the New Testament because Yeshua (Jesus) went to the Temple to celebrate the Feast of Rededication (Chanukah), and gave our children gifts, it was still not enough. They expressed to us that they felt their holiday wasn’t as good. Being a sensitive, caring father, who wanted my sons to be proud they were Jewish, I wanted to show them we could do more to celebrate Chanukah and make it more important. So, I went out and picked up 2 x 4’s and made a 6 foot menorah wired to hold nine light bulbs and every night we’d increase the light. The boys dug up an evergreen bush from our yard, called it a Chanukah bush, and brought it into the house and decorated it with stuff they found around the house. Strings of popcorn, paper cut outs, tinsel, etc. It’s amazing how we had let our peers influence us. So we celebrated a flamboyant and innovative Chanukah that year. That was probably the last time we celebrated the holiday in that manner. I think they only needed to get it out of their systems. The huge menorah never did go up again and we never did get another bush. They lost interest in the bush half way thru decorating it and asked my wife to finish the job. We were amazed by this. It seem one wants what they can’t have, and once they have it (sort of) they realize they really didn’t care about it all that much. Regular Chanukah was fine with them----as long as they got the presents!!!

Many years later I became a Messianic Jew and I remember my wife saying to me “you’re doing this so that you can have a tree and decoration and be part of the majority” and you know what happened instead? Chanukah became more meaningful to me and the history of my people. We still celebrate as Jews, in a quieter, historical way, about the time when Judaism fought for it’s life and survived to continue to worship God bringing His light of joy into our 8 candles and our homes and synagogues.

Since my article is late I’ll wish all of you a “Happy 2007” Chanukah early. My family and I wish y'all a Happy and Healthy New Year.