Happy Hanukkah to you

Hanukkah is here I wanted to wish a happy holiday with a comic. Here is the link, it was the only one I found enjoy: Happy Hanukkah

WHAT I remember most is the smell. It would seep into the walls and stay for days as my mother fried batches of the traditional potato latkes (pancakes) of Hanukkah in sizzling oil, grating the potatoes by hand against her old metal grater. Her fingers often bore the nicks and scratches for weeks afterward.

My father’s role was to hand out Hanukkah gelt, shiny pennies, nickels and dimes, to my sister and me. He did it with great ceremony, a chubby bespectacled man suddenly turned Shakespearean actor.

But the main event was the lighting of the candles on the sturdy brass Hanukkah menorah, the candelabrum that came out of hiding from the dining room buffet each December. Ruthie and I loved to linger at the dining room table and watch the candles burn down each night.

When my husband and I had children, we tried to preserve those simple traditions. We even managed for a while. But the potato latkes my mother had made from scratch started coming from a prepackaged mix. And nickels, dimes and pennies didn’t do much for our three daughters. So occasionally, they scored tangible trifles wrapped in mass-merchandised Hanukkah paper. We had gone commercial.

That’s Terry and Patty LaBan’s Edge City. If you know of others, please link in the comments.