Thursday, December 8, 2016

25 Days of Holiday Fun In Paradise


Thanks to Dory and the Boyz for hosting this blog hop. Today we are going to share with you how we celebrate the holidays.

Christmas:

Lady and Man have no religious beliefs but were both raised in Christian homes. They both grew up celebrating Christmas. In our house we still celebrate Christmas. 



Food: Usually a full turkey dinner for immediate family (often it is us and Uncle Chris)
Presents: Very few these days, more experiences, but Santa fills our stockings.
Decorations: A huge tree and a number of other decorations. They are mostly secular in nature. 
Music: Lots of Christmas CDs. Charlie Brown being a favourite
Activities: Eating, watching movies, playing games, just hanging out, usually in our pjs




Hanukkah:
When Lady was putting herself through school she nannied for families. Several of the families she worked for were Jewish. Long story short, she fell in love with the latke (potato pancake) and the celebration of deep fried food! Who wouldn't?  Over a decade ago (Lady isn't sure if it was 2002 or 2003) the Man and Lady were looking for a theme for a holiday party and they decided to do a Hanukkah themed one. That was the beginning of a new tradition, the Hanukkah dinner. They seriously have a waiting list of people who want to be invited. Some years they do a big Hanukkah with lots of people (25 last year) and sometimes like this year it is a family Hanukkah (there will be 11)
Our holiday table

Food: Brisket or brisket inspired beef, latkes, green beans with a yellow pepper and pine nut sauce, challa (bread), jelly filled donuts for dessert. 
Presents: Lady exchanges 8 crazy nights of presents with Troy and Maggie (her niece and nephew)
Decorations: We have made an upside down tree we decorate with blue and silver. We have a number of other decorations, include a Little People play set and a beautiful Menorah. We have more Hanukkah dishes then Christmas ones.
Music: The Leevees Hanukkah album.
Activities: Sometimes w play dreidel, but mostly chatting and eating. 

Our Hanukkah Tree













12 comments:

  1. OH Phod and Hailey....you two get the best of two sets of fine traditions.
    your Hanukkah party sounds wonderful. Is that tree upside down?
    My peeps had a lovely Jewish family who lived near them years ago. Mom, Dad and Sis celebrated a few times with them too. Mom especially likes Kugal. Guess what the mom in that family was named Cecilia too

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  2. Oh wow, LOVE the upside down tree (what does that say about my inner howliday spirit? LOL!!). We ❤️ latkes with sour cream and applesauce and have eaten them for 87 years. 😇 Too yummy. I can almost taste those delish crispy edges.

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  3. That upside down tree is so funny! And we love your reindeer and sled. :)

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  4. I love this Chanukah idea. I too was raised Christan but not practicing. The foods for Chanukah fascinate me, especially the latkes. The green beans with a yellow pepper and pine nut sauce intrigues me. I must look it up.

    Thank you my friends, this shall be fun.

    Jean

    http://canadian cats.com

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  5. I love your way to celebrate christmas and to have a hanukkah dinner. have you ever tried to make gefilte fish at home? I always had this plan, but I'm not brave enough to try it ;o)

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  6. Hari OM
    My word, you really do celebrate - and in great style!!! this was lovely to read and I will ask you to eat a couple of latkes on my behalf...slurpsssss............ hugs and wags, YAM-aunty xxx

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  7. We do Christmas too with the tree and stockings, etc. Most of the time we end up at a relatives on Christmas day. This year we didn't decorate as much as usual with little Madison around we have to be careful.

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  8. the two of you are adorable in front of the tree.

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  9. We love that you do both celebrations!
    hugs
    Mr Bailey, Hazel & Mabel

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  10. That's a good way to celebrate Christmas. And we love the PJ part! We are fond of those too!!

    Mara, Brom and Miss Oswin from Norway

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  11. I've never heard of the upside down tree! We don't do Hanukkah, but our Christmas sounds very similar to yours! We only have a 4 foot tree though. Once we got golden retrievers who are kleptos we had to give up on a big tree unless I can put it in a closed off room (which we can't right now in our new house).

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  12. upside down tree :-) Merry Christmas 🎄 Golden LOVE and Woofs, SUGAR n mom Rosalyn

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