It is Hanukkah, which means that in addition to lighting candles, eating potato pancakes and rugalech, and opening presents on the first and last nights, my father and I will enjoy our own unique tradition. Tonight is the second night, and while all day long my mother and I put up Christmas decorations, right now my father and I are fully engrossed in our special tradition.
We sit in the chair and he opens our old, frail copy of “Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins”, by Eric Kimmel, which we’ve owned since my older sister was little. My father begins the story and soon I am far away, my head on his shoulder and my mind totally relaxed as his deep, resonating voice runs through it. He smells like the candy he is constantly sucking on, and his voice is as dry as his cracked hands that have worked in the un-heated barn all day long. I laugh at his impression of the KING OF THE GOBLINS and all his other goblin-specific voices I only hear one time a year. Yet I know each voice and intonation by heart, just as I know when my father will pause in mid-sentence, lost in thought.
This tradition has extended throughout my life, and though each year it is a little harder for me to fit in the recliner on my petit father’s lap, no matter how short a person I may be, I still always manage to find a comfortable nook in the chair. Though this year my mind wanders away from the story at one point, to thoughts of college applications and drama with friends, I consciously pull it back. I realize I have to be present, to hold on to these moments where I’m sitting on my father’s lap, feeling relaxed and innocent, still able to be protected from the evil goblin’s of the world, because daddy is near. -Kelsey
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Growing Up at Hanukkah
It is Hanukkah, which means that in addition to lighting candles, eating potato pancakes and rugalech, and opening presents on the first and last nights, my father and I will enjoy our own unique tradition. Tonight is the second night, and while all day long my mother and I put up Christmas decorations, right now my father and I are fully engrossed in our special tradition.
We sit in the chair and he opens our old, frail copy of “Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins”, by Eric Kimmel, which we’ve owned since my older sister was little. My father begins the story and soon I am far away, my head on his shoulder and my mind totally relaxed as his deep, resonating voice runs through it. He smells like the candy he is constantly sucking on, and his voice is as dry as his cracked hands that have worked in the un-heated barn all day long. I laugh at his impression of the KING OF THE GOBLINS and all his other goblin-specific voices I only hear one time a year. Yet I know each voice and intonation by heart, just as I know when my father will pause in mid-sentence, lost in thought.
This tradition has extended throughout my life, and though each year it is a little harder for me to fit in the recliner on my petit father’s lap, no matter how short a person I may be, I still always manage to find a comfortable nook in the chair. Though this year my mind wanders away from the story at one point, to thoughts of college applications and drama with friends, I consciously pull it back. I realize I have to be present, to hold on to these moments where I’m sitting on my father’s lap, feeling relaxed and innocent, still able to be protected from the evil goblin’s of the world, because daddy is near. -Kelsey