Hanukkah

In keeping with our attempts at being a diverse and multi-culturally aware family, today we had our Hanukkah feast.  We wouldn't have the time to do it on Saturday the actual start of the holiday, so we did it a day early.  Being non-jewish we did the best we could at authenticity and really learning about the holiday and it's significance to the jewish faith.   I made 2 Challah, the traditional bread of Jewish holidays, with 6 strands in each loaf, totalling 12, representing the 12 tribes of Israel.  We had a roast chicken, spiced applesauce and green beans as well, all kosher and normal Hannukah fare.  Then the kids taught us the dreidel game they learned at school, although we had to make some modifications since we don't have a dreidel.  Eva won!

 

 

 

Before and after pics of my Challah.  For some reason one loaf didn't rise as well as they other. :(  But they turned out great nonetheless.

 

 

We made a feast day out of it and even had lighted candles on the table, just the two since we don't own a menorah.  We had fun learning and talking about what we have in common and what is different between Mormons and Jews.

 

Next up...Christmas Eve (Christian celebrations), Christmas Day (American celebrations) and Chinese New Year (Chinese celebrations)...

 

...hopefully I'll remember to post pics, since I forgot to on several of the other holidays this hear (Cinco de Mayo was awesome).

St. Nicklaus Day

We're trying hard this year to teach our kids about different cultures, religions, countries, etc.  So for the first time St. Nicklaus came to our house last night.  He filled our running shoes with nuts in their shells, christmas socks, 2 candies each and two christmas pencils.  We learned about dark chocolate being what most europeans eat so we were not surprised to find Ghiradelli's dark chocolate variety's in our shoes. ;-)   And to top it all off, I'm taking the kiddos to the Arlington Christkindl 2nd annual German festival tonight, I thought it would be the best day to go learn more about German holiday traditions. 

 

I have pictues of the kids enjoying Flammkuchen (German Pizza) at the Christkindl but I can't post them until after the adoption finalizes.  We also had Schmalzkuchen (scones) and wassil. Yummm!

 

We shopped, we learned, we tasted, we listened, we played, we had soo much fun being German for the day.  We even got to see St. Nicklaus himself, although he had a strangely Texan accent. Humm?!?

 

And tomorrow we'll be moving on to another cuture to study...we are having Challah at dinner in honor of Hanukkah