Christmas

2011

This year we are driving to New Mexico to go to Sandra Dodd's Always Learning Live Unschooling Symposium.  It starts on the 28th of December, which means we'll start driving two days after Christmas.  Austin is less than pleased about this, but we decide to work with him and try to make him as happy and comfortable as possible. 

We came up with the idea of spreading the holiday over twelve days instead of one day -- you know, the Twelve Days of Christmas. This idea quickly evolved into celebrating Hanukkah. 

Dreidel getting some air.

Monty and I are both godless heathens so it may seem weird to celebrate a holiday as religious as Hanukkah, but atheism comes with open-minds, lots of freedom and few hang-ups about celebration. We got to immerse ourselves in a culture that was new to us. We listened to audio books about the origin of Hanukkah, colored lots of Jewish-themed pictures and talked about Jewish history while doing so, played with dreidels and learned the story behind the game. More games should have chocolate gelt!

Austin lighting the minora.

Every night Austin got to open a gift and every night he was eager to do so.  We also included our friends in the celebration by going to their house to give and donating to the local animal shelter.

All in all I would say it was a fun experiment, maybe one we'll keep around.