Christmukah part 3 - Build-up to Christmas and Yon's eyes

You can feel the Christmas in the air. The kids vacation started today, Hidai worked from home and have now started his vacation also, and my parents are on their way here, and I spent the whole day cleaning and getting the house ready. Very festive. But really, all the beautiful lights are on, the iTunes is non-stop Christmas music (drives Hidai crazy listening to the same songs all the time),...

Read more »

Christmukah part 2 - How Christmukah came to be

The truth is in real life I don't need to justify Christmukah anymore, but this is a new blog with new readers, and maybe it's not justifying but explaining. I was debating with myself for a week now if it's necessary or not to explain here why and how we decided to celebrate Christmas (and basically every other non-Jewish holiday. But Christmas is by far the biggest of them all). This will be our 4th Christmas since we left Israel. The first one was 3 days after we...

Read more »

Christmukah Part 1 - Hannukah

Apparently you can write Hannukah in English in like 5 different ways, so I never know what way is the correct way. I also heard it called The Jewish Christmas, which I found really funny. I go with Hannukah just because :). Just in case you don't know, Hannukah is NOT a big deal in Israel. Well that's not really true, because you have the doughnuts. And who doesn't like doughnuts? also you have the...

Read more »

To Blog or Not To Blog, and also it's Christmukah!

I haven't been here for a while. Some of it is because I am spending this past few weeks half-healthy, or on the verge of yet another illness if you prefer. Some of it was because I was so so busy with organising Christmikah, which always starts with "what's the problem?" and turns in to a military operation filled with excel spreadsheets and wrapping papers. But mostly it was not being sure if I wanted to come back. I felt the Blog lost its way a bit, or maybe it was me, I am not really...

Read more »

Baking bits

I want to bake. I am at this very moment looking for an excuse to bake: it's Sunday - lets bake, we have guests this afternoon - lets bake, it's eleven in the morning - lets bake, and my favorite - we have carrot juice - lets bake. It's my favorite because it works with everything - we have yeast that need using, we have 3 egg whites etc. You get my point. Also it usually works because Hidai...

Read more »

Almost Thanksgiving

Ron doesn't believe in magic anymore. Hidai said it's magic that we got him to believe this far. I just don't get it. How can you not believe in magic? I told him, everyone needs a bit of magic in their lives. But nothing. Fairies aren't real because it's absurd that people can fly,  Harry Potter is just an actor, and he doesn't need money so no teeth fairy anymore. No witches and no wizards also. He said 'oh, fine' to Santa and the Easter Bunny because they bring him things, but it was quite...

Read more »

Lemon Tree

A couple of weeks ago I started writing this post about what happened in our lives over the half-term and Halloween and how everything is going kinda fine. And then something weird happened - in about three days it became really really clear that everything is a lot of things, but fine is definitely NOT one of them. You know the whole "when life gives you lemons...", "everything's for the best", "what doesn't kill you..." and the classic "you only gets trials you are strong enough to triumph"...

Read more »

Jews at 10

I am actually waiting for Jews at 10 to start, and am feeling only slightly ashamed for it :). I have to say I sometimes find it surprising just how Jewish we are. I mean, obviously we are Israelis, and Jewish, and it's important to us, but usually when we think of ourselves it will be as Israelis, but not as Jews. You don't really think of the meaning of the Jewishism (I know it's not an actual word), and the difference between Jewish and other people. I was shocked at how many times I found myself...

Read more »

Grandparents in London

My boys are watching yet another football match (it really sometimes seems like the football matches never end... If it is not this league it's the other one, if it is not a live one it is a recorded one, or a show about one). Whatever. I closed myself in the room with my ever-trusty Mac, and am trying to finish closing my gaps. It's not only here that I have huge gaps to close - I managed to open...

Read more »

On Autumn and Connections

I seriously can't believe it's the end of October already. Time is such a funny thing isn't it? On the one hand it tends to fly away (especially when you have lots to do, 3 hours a day to accomplish everything you need and a tendency to watch TV instead of work), while on the other hand it takes its time...  It is our first Autumn here in London (and yes I know it's also Fall, but Autumn...

Read more »