Column: For Kids, Hanukkah Doesn't Hold a Candle to Christmas

Christmas has always been a curious event for me. Jewish kids are not ready to hear that Santa Claus would fly his sleigh loaded down with toys for all the good little boys and girls all over the world but sail right past their houses just because they are Jewish.

The nonsense about a Hanukkah bush always struck me as a feeble attempt to make me feel better about not having a Christmas tree when all of the full-color ads laden with photos of the best toys you never knew existed would arrive in the mail. But nothing in those ads said Jewish children couldn’t ask Santa for a few toys, too.

True, we did get eight gifts, one on each night of Hanukkah. But in all honesty, only the last one was a really, really good gift. Maybe I was just spoiled, but handkerchiefs trimmed with different colors did not satisfy my itch for Patty Play Pal or Chatty Cathy.

It was, admittedly, very nice to get some goodies simply because I was Jewish. We lit the Hanukkah candles on the menorah, each night adding one until on the eighth night, it was truly lovely. We sang songs about the Maccabbees, sometimes in Hebrew. We ate special Hanukkah dishes like latkes with sour cream and applesauce. Personally, I think more holidays should be celebrated for eight days.

We all got the same toy, a dreidl. With its indecipherable Hebrew markings on each of four sides, we didn’t have a clue how to play with it. OK, you give it a spin and it spins and then it falls. So you pick it up and spin it again. Gets old pretty fast. We were never told that dreidls were part of a gambling game.

Of course, the adults dodged that one with the ultimate child bribe: chocolate. They would pass out the shiny gold Hanukkah gelt and walk away with a satisfied smirk as if the dreidl and the gelt would amuse us for hours, freeing them for their adult activities.

Honestly, Hanukkah just didn’t hold a candle to Christmas. My best friend in the whole world was also Jewish, but her family went all out for Christmas. They had a stunning tree that sparkled with delicate German glass ornaments and icicles. I was painfully envious. When I asked my parents about this seeming contradiction, having a tree and all, they patiently replied, “Her mother is a German Jew.”

As if that explained the mysteries of the world.

“Ooooooohhhhh,” I would say walking away.

Luckily, Santa didn’t pass us over completely. We hung stockings (Dad’s old socks) over the fireplace and went to bed early after hearing “The Night Before Christmas.” We arose around dawn, were groggily told to wait until a less ungodly hour, and when we finally crept downstairs, we saw how really good we had been.

There would be five rows of gifts laid out, getting progressively larger. Starting with Dad, then Mom, then my oldest brother, my middle brother, and the hugest pile of gifts was for the littlest one, me. Sometimes there was even a pink bicycle just my size. The absence of a tree was forgotten entirely.

Family would arrive from the other side of the city in the afternoon and the cousins would play hours of Monopoly until dinner. Sometimes, the cousins and my brothers would get bored with kid stuff and would head outside to stupidly “skitch” on the back bumper of a car along the icy streets. Only once did that involve a trip to the ER for my brother. All those street cinders.

Christmas was the best kids’ holiday possible. I loved it, loved it, loved it. I was part of the big party everyone else was having but without the need to get dressed up and go to church.  

I had just been through eight days of menorahs, the lessons of the Maccabbees and celebrating a miracle that happened thousands of years ago. But it just didn’t satisfy a little girl like a few moments on Santa’s lap.