Celebrating Hanukkah with words and stories
By Sally Friedman
You do the math:Seven grandchildren. Eight nights of Hanukkah. One gift per child per day.
I wasn’t going there. Not when our grandchildren are blessed with loving families who see to their needs, and then some.
So I’ve devised a quite different Hanukkah plan. And while it may seem odd, it’s meaningful in ways that are easier felt than explained.
Here’s how it works: I get each grandchild a purchased gift. One. It may be as trifling as a book, or, depending on recent birthday gift history, something more major. It is never of such magnitude that I worry about the object being injured, maimed, lost or destroyed.
Then I work on what I’ve come to think of as my “real” gift.
Because Hanukkah is really about miracles, and because these seven wondrous creatures are surely that, I’ve devoted myself to this challenge:
I’d spend hours, sometimes weeks, preparing a letter to each child. I started it when they were too young to be reading.
I’d sit at my computer and “talk” to it about Sam or Hannah, Jonah or Zay, Danny or Emily and little Carly. I’d chronicle who they were at this moment in their emerging histories.
I would catalog conversations we’ve had, stories they’ve told me, names of their friends, their adored toys and stuffed animals, endearing habits, bedtime rituals, school anecdotes, even favorite articles of clothing.
Several Hanukkahs ago, I actually decided to illustrate my ramblings with photographs, a motivation for “shooting” these adored little ones at every opportunity.
And then I’d store it all away in what was becoming my bulging “Grandkids Hanukkah File.” My vague sense was that the years of “gifts” would be delivered when each grandchild reached about 15.
But I accelerated that. Kids grow up much faster these days. Now, I deliver the early histories to date when the grandkids reach 13, the presumed age of maturity in Judaism.
And I keep on writing about them. The older ones get an annual chronicle. So far, so good.
Only two remain in the pre-13 category, and they’re both clamoring to see their, ahem, life stories. And they surely will.
The “bigs,” the older grandchildren, seem to delight in being the stars of their grandmother’s biographies.
So what does all of this have to do with Hanukkah?
Nothing at all. And everything.
Somewhere down the road, even the youngest two grandchildren may understand why they didn’t get the mountain of gifts their little pals may have. A few years from now, they may figure out why their grandmother still asks them endless questions, and sometimes frantically scribbles down their answers on scraps of paper, eager to get every word.
My Hanukkah gift to our Magnificent Seven is obviously not what they might have expected. And because they’ve been exposed to the galloping gift frenzy of the season, they’ve shown and expressed disappointment.
They wanted, in Hannah’s immortal words as spokesperson for the clan, “cool stuff” for this eight-day potential gift bonanza. And they weren’t getting it.
I once heard Sam talking to a little friend and comparing notes about the annual haul. His pal had gotten action figures and a scooter from his grandparents. Sam was left to explain what he had — or in this case, hadn’t — gotten.
He fumbled. He struggled to explain what he’s been told each year, that grandma is creating something special for him, and that when he and his cousins are older, they’ll get something even better than “cool stuff.” They’ll get memories, history, reminders of who they were at 2 and 5 and 8 and 10.
Sam’s friend didn’t understand. Nor, I’m sure, did Sam. Not then.
But for now, I’m hanging tough. I’m resisting the urge to splurge on traditional grandmother gifts. I’m keeping my credit cards locked in their compartment in my wallet, and using my loving memories as revenue instead.
This gift of my grandchildren’s lives, frozen in time, seems perfectly right for Hanukah.
Isn’t this, after all, the season of history, hope and miracles?
I rest my case.