Happy 2015 to everyone!! Hoping this new year brings health, happiness, peace, and only good things to everyone! We had a veerryy low key New Years last night. We had returned super late the night before from our trip to Tenerife, so we weren’t really up for venturing out in the evening last night. Jeff cooked a yummy meal, we toasted with some delicious Irish hard cider, got the boys to bed, and just caught up on some shows. Not the most glamorous New Years but at this stage in life, was just right for us 🙂 We did make it up til midnight though so that’s an accomplishment at least 🙂

I hadn’t had a chance to blog yet about Hanukkah, so thought I’d share a bit about it. It was definitely different this year being on our own. Most years, we celebrate most of the nights with some combination of family and friends and it all feels very festive. This year it was just us, though we did video chat with my parents during candle lighting and presents a few of the nights.

Even though at home Hanukkah is not extremely evident out in public, you can still find some Hanukkah paraphernalia pretty easily around Seattle (like candles in most grocery stores, wrapping paper and cards in card stores, etc). Here, there is virtually nothing, particularly on the north side of the city where we live. The south side has a small jewish population, so there’s one grocery store where they sell Kosher foods and they had Hanukkah candles in stock, so I trekked down there to buy some. I practically accosted a nice middle aged woman who was also shopping in the Hanukkah aisle because she’s the first Jewish person I’ve encountered here. It’s not that I’m so religious or anything at home, but I’ve never been in an environment where I’ve felt so in the minority being Jewish. Talking to this lady just felt like an instant connection, and she took my email and got me signed up for the Jewish community email list, so I can see about getting involved with some other events and maybe meeting some other young families. Once I was on the email list, I learned about a few Hannukah events we could have gone to, but between being sick and then going out of town, we missed them. That’s ok though — we still had a nice Hanukkah as our little family unit, and thanks to all those friends and family near and far who sent holiday cards, good wishes, and contributed to gifts — we so appreciate it! We celebrated the first four nights here in Dublin and the last four in Tenerife (Canary Islands). Here are a few pictures:

We also were invited to teach Isaac’s preschool class about Hanukkah. We cooked latkes (actually my first time) and brought in the menorah to light. Taught the kids the story of Hanukkah and I had prepared a little art project for them to do, but we ran out of time. It was an interesting experience — none of the kids had ever heard of the holiday. Not sure how interested they were or how much they “got” but they liked the latkes. And the teachers were very interested and asked me a ton of questions about Hanukkah and Judaism in general. I think Isaac was really glad we got to do it because it’s been so heavy on Christmas at school. Here are the latkes we made:

So I think even more than the lack of Hanukkah around, I’ve been most surprised by the extreme prevalence of Christmas everywhere! I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised — Ireland is almost 90% Catholic (and a few percent on top of that are Protestant), so it makes sense, it’s just different from home. It doesn’t bother me and is part of the experience of being here (and we were out of town on actual Christmas so didn’t have to worry about literally everything shutting down). I guess it just feels probably how things used to be maybe in the 1950s? Or still probably are in some parts of the states but in PC seattle — the assumption that everyone celebrates Christmas (which, here, pretty much everyone does so it does make sense to have that assumption :)) At home, most people don’t say merry Christmas but rather happy holidays. Here, there is no happy holiday wishing — it’s only Merry Christmas or Happy Christmas. Everywhere you
go are decorations and trees and lights, some very beautiful. When I was in town shopping, the big stores have huge light displays and window displays. I took a few pictures (the words in lights below Baile Atha Cliath is how you say Dublin in Irish)

It was interesting too how early Christmas prep begins here. Perhaps because they don’t have Thanksgiving, it was like as soon as Halloween ended, Christmas began. Decorations, music, Christmas markets and meeting Santa — all started in early-mid November. The Irish really go all out for this holiday! Jeff read that, as a country, they are number 1 in the world per for spending per capita at this time of year!

It was also different because Isaac’s school did a Christmas play and it was a big deal — they started practice in early November. Originally it was your basic nativity play with angels, the manger, the wise men, etc. but they actually added a new song/act to be more inclusive of Isaac. So the song he was in was about snow men (more generic winter), though for his costume he decided to wear an angel halo as well 🙂 also the class had a visit from Santa — again, just very different from what you would find in most preschools in Seattle. All part of the cultural experience here 🙂

So that’s a bit about what our winter holidays have been like here. We just returned from our time in the sun, so next up I’ll do some blogging about that. For now, happy new year, happy Hannukah, Merry Christmas, and happy holidays to everyone!