wizzard

All I want for Chanukah

  

Every December in grade school I enjoyed 8 days of being the envy of all of my friends. "So you get present every night and on Christmas?"  They'd ask in disbelief.  I was the only kid they knew who was Jewish and who had a Christmas tree - the only thing borrowed from my Dad's Catholicism.

Each year as Chanukah approached, I suppose drunken from my friends surrounding envy, I imagined running downstairs to the garage to a brand new 10 speed with a giant dradled covered bow on it's handle bars.  

Instead, after the lighting of the candles and monotoned chanting of prayers, my mother would leave the room to retrieve our gifts. She returned with 2 identically shaped presents and handed them to me and my sister, careful not to make eye contact.  

Still disillusioned, I feverishly tore the paper off the cylindrical shape only to reveal a bottle of Suave.  I quickly flashed back to the previous morning when I shouted from the shower that we were out of shampoo.

I didn't have to look at my sister to know that she held the accompanying conditioner, but still exchanged glances of utter disappointment as though we were two orphans receiving a heel of stale bread.

By the time the 8th and final night arrived, we had recalibrated our own expectations.  When my mother handed us each identical rectangular gifts, we ripped the paper off to reveal our very own boxes of sugar cereal - a forbidden breakfast in our home.  As my sister ate her Pops for breakfast lunch and dinner, I savored every bite of Frosted Flakes all through Christmas.