Hanukkah and Christmas are here again.

In our family, there hasn’t been one without the other.  It’s all that my kids know, although both holidays are different they simultaneously exist in our home, melding together like a salad. Although I try my best to separate the two, I do wish I could enjoy eachone entirely on its own.  I didn’t grow up celebrating Hanukkah, but I can imagine how beautiful this holiday is on its own, without the Christmas flare that exists around it in our home. The Holiday is so beautiful and simple and doesn’t need any bells and whistles. The candle lights flickering on the menorah are enough to fill your heart with peace, love and joy. It’s a holiday I never knew I needed and In a world where Christmas is so overpowering and overly done, Hanukkah is refreshing and needs nothing more to embellish it. Sometimes it ends up being a competition around here, like “why are we giving these gifts to the kids for Christmas and not hanukkah” and vise versa. Or we argue about our holiday card and it having too much red and not enough blue, or too much blue and not enough red. We get caught up in what these holidays are not.

Not sure if we will ever get it right but what I do know is that it all ends up being ALRIGHT in the end.