Hannukah Book Exchange

My brilliant Grandmother thought this one up a few years back. Instead of going out and spending a bunch of money on ridiculous gifts no one needs, she cleaned out her own bookshelves and gave family members 8 of her used books. Since she reads great stuff, no one complained, and the tradition of the Hanukah Book Exchange was born!

The next year, my Mother designed this cool stamp, which integrates the recycle arrows into the Star of David. Each year, family members are assigned someone to give books to. We've started bringing chocolate into the mix, too, and we've brought the number of books down from 8 to just one or two.

The history of the Hanukah book club is starting to liven up, when books join the circuit and are stamped by a different person every year. Sometimes their history predates the HBC. My Aunt Alice is a voracious reader, and even when it's not Hanukah, she's giving books to my Mother and Grandmother constantly. So I've gotten books from Mom that already have Alice's name on them.

My family has eclectic tastes, but fortunately the books are always high quality and never crap.

The only problem is that the number of book exchangers is small... only 6 of us participate every year.

The more the merrier- anyone want to start their own chapter?

Sunny and Drying!

Sweaters arrived home from the County Fair and were washed immediately. We are absolutely paranoid about moths around here and didn't want anything sneaking in from Pomona. Being around all that sleazy knitwear at the Fair- God only knows what they might bring home. The County Fair display cases are the sweater equivalent to a condom-free orgy. Or something along those lines.





Also making scarves and washing them so they are nice and soft.

Makeshift Menorah

In my neighborhood, vendors set up makeshift stores full of crap for every holiday on the street corners. Mother's Day means gift baskets of low end toiletries and lotions, Easter heralds the arrival of colorful baskets of sugary treats, Christmas goes ballistic with trees and toys and electronics. A lady was selling fake Ugg boots in the parking lot of the fried chicken place on Jefferson yesterday. In all colors.

The one thing these vendors never seem to hawk are Hanukkah candles. Not only can I not find them in the streets, I can't find them in the stores. This happened last year. The holiday always sneaks up on me. I never remember that it's coming and I'm not hanging out in Judaica stores, so there are never any shopping cues.

So this year, Hanukkah crept up on me, again, and I wasn't ready. On the first day of the holiday, I did a half-assed shopping trip to Borders to find candles but no dice. They only had some Hanukkah kit complete with candles and little glass candle holders for $19.99. On the second day, I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond, where I had seen a whole Jewish ghetto set up a few years back. They even had poor Jewish peasant salt and pepper shakers. This year, nothing. Only Christmas crapola.

On the third day of Hanukkah I went to Whole Foods. I asked for Hanukkah candles at the front desk and the nice gentile man sent me to the aromatherapy section in the middle of vitamins and shampoo where I asked a lady who might have been a MOT where the goods were. She said they were sold out, and chided me for being late. That Whole Foods (Fairfax and Santa Monica Blvd) was also out of prepared tofu sticks and coffee bags, so it seems to me that they just have a stocking problem. So we drove down Fairfax and every single Jew store was closed because it was 7:30 and finally, I was just like FUCK IT, and I made the Makeshift Menorah.

The whole thing about Hanukkah is that some lamp way back when burned for eight days and eight nights on oil that wasn't supposed to last that long. Even though it was a miracle and all, it is still pretty makeshift, so my Makeshift Menorah of tea lights, a corningware plate and a candle in a candle holder, is pretty close to the original idea of just doing the best you can with the materials available.

Happy Hanukkah.