happy birthday to hanukkah

happy hanukkah!

my mom's side of the family is jewish, which technically makes me jewish. and although i have never identified religiously as jewish, it is a huge and important part of my culture and heritage. growing up, we celebrated both hanukkah and christmas, and in fact my brother and i attended a year's worth of hebrew school at one point.

i've always loved the tradition of the hanukkah menorah, so we've always done one in our house, since long before john was even born. but it's really fun this year, since he's so aware of what's going on around him and is learning things so fast. 

saturday night was the first night of hanukkah this year, so we lit the candles, i said the blessing, we said amen, and then john said, "now we sing happy birthday!"

i said, "oh, love, i know it's candles, but it's not birthday candles, it's hanukkah candles!"

and he said, "no! sing happy birthday!"

so i asked him, "who are we singing to, john?"

and he responded, "happy birthday to hanukkah!"

so every night for the past five nights, we've rounded out our hanukkah celebration with a rousing rendition of the birthday song, with hanukkah as the recipient. 

as silly as it is, i sort of like it. we may have forged our own little tradition!