Winter Break Update

Wow, I haven't posted since October. I guess I've been a little busy!

Light up the lake

Now that it's winter break, I feel like I should have more time, but somehow the days are full of cooking (and eating) and reading and knitting and family fun and a million other things. Just when I thought I could hibernate.

Alright now onto the more interesting stuff:

Until this year, I didn't realize how much I love Chanukah. This is because until this year, I was home for Chanukkah. This year, Chanukkah fell during AU10 finals, so unfortunately I didn't really get to spend it with my family (except for a brief candle-lighting in my apartment with my parents and sam's parents after shugshabbat immediately before shugaschwasted). I was surprised that by the end of the 6th night I was completely disenchanted with the holiday; I didn't want to sing the blessings, I didn't want to light the candles (other than as an excuse to take pictures), I didn't want latkes or sufganiyot, no matter how delicious. I felt homesick and exhausted (wompwomp) and I just wasn't interested in celebrating the miracle of light anymore.

These smoke curls remind me of Nightmare Before Christmas

Then I finished finals, came home, and my family and I celebrated what I'm calling the 10th night of Chanukkah--we lit 20 menorahs, sang the blessings, and pretended it was the last night of the holiday. It ruled. Apparently my family was feeling the same way about Chanukkah this year, which really made me feel good--we don't necessarily celebrate the traditional story of Chanukkah, but we celebrate being together and celebrating as a family, which is totally awesome. I'm a lucky lady.

Since then it's been a lot of running around. I've been cooking up a storm, brewing excessive amounts of hot tea, and generally goofing around, which is a nice change (although not really that different from what I do during the quarter). It's been nice to catch up with friends and read for fun. I'm looking forward to whatever else winter break brings (snow days with the siblings--so far we've had 2...).