Despite rumors to the contrary, there are a million great things about living in New York City.
One of the best things about New York City is that you are surrounded by people of varying cultures and religions. Eliza already celebrates the traditions of Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and Diwali. She does a pretty respectable recitation of the Prayer for Lighting the Menorah and even knows the purpose of the shammash.
Most of the time Eliza understands the different traditions and realizes that we celebrate different things at different times.
Your average New Yorker thinks of these beautiful trees as the Park Avenue Christmas Trees:
Not so Eliza! In our house these trees are known as the "Hanukkah Christmas Trees." You may be wondering why. Of course you are wondering why.
Our tree looks like this:
Eliza has apparently decided that "Christmas Christmas Trees" have colored lights and "Hanukkah Christmas Trees" have white lights.
I'm not sure how Eliza is going to work Kwanzaa and Diwali into her Christmas tradition, but she has put some new dreidels on her list for Santa :)
I love that she is growing up exposed to so many different cultures. New York is definitely great for that. I feel pretty lucky that despite the small size of the town that I live in and the fact that we're in the middle of the Wonderbread midwest, sam is also exposed to a lot of different cultures. Probably not to the same extent, but it's there when you look for it. Thanks for the great reminder of some of the other celebrations going on around us. Sam's been mostly focused on the celebration of his birthday, and when he's mad at me he tells me I can't come to his party. :)
ReplyDeleteI love it! She's so creative. Charlie and I say "Happy all the holidays" to you!
ReplyDeleteIt just shows how smart she is and that she wants to figure everthing out--make sense of her world, if you will. Eliza is getting a wonderful education right in her hometown. I can tell already that she's going to have a beautiful Christmas!
ReplyDeleteI love how their minds work. I'm sure you can imagine our lack of culture here in the midwest. We've got both kinds of religions - Baptist and Catholic :) Are there Kwanza songs - I mean other than a really poor rendition I saw on SNL with Tim Meadows and Vanessa Williams?
ReplyDeleteand you should know that my word verification tonight is 'tinkle'
@Sarah, Kwanzaa is Here by Greta Pederson is a nice one:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQFEHkT-gtI
@Barb: If I was Sam I would put my own personal celebration at the top of holiday list too!
ReplyDeleteSmart girl. That is so great that she knows how other cultures celebrate their holidays.
ReplyDeleteWe received the beautiful blanket today, thank you so much for contributing to Elizabeth's NICU Christmas project. I can't believe how fast it came, I think the Attourney at Law address label may have moved the package a bit quicker.
Thank you so much. Wishing you and your family a Happy Holiday.
@Angi,
ReplyDeleteGlad the blanket arrived! I had my doubts about my customs form :)