A New Sign of the Season, for Next Year

We're leaving for the airport in a couple of hours--off to visit Politica's father and then my family. We'll be gone for only a week, and then will be home for a week of winter break. We're looking forward to the home part. Usually we drive east and take the whole break away from home. Time at home seems like a luxury, and we can't wait.

But still, we'll be gone for a week, and so when one of my friends came by last night to pick up her daughter (after a regular Tuesday playdate and dinner), I gave her some of the food we hadn't finished. Her older kids eyed the pineapple on our dining room table (something we'd meant to cut up for our party but forgot to). I gave them the pineapple. "A Hanukkah pineapple!" the kids said. Curious Girl got sad that we were giving away the pineapple, so I chopped a piece for us and gave them the rest. In the excitement of hustling the kids back out of the house, they forgot the pineapple, so I drove it over to their house. I arrived just as one of their children was starting to whine about the forgotten pineapple.

"Let's always do this, give each other a pineapple for Hanukkah," my friend said. I laughed. "It wouldn't be Hanukkah without the new traditional Hanukkah pineapple!" OK, maybe you had to be there, or maybe you had to be someone who lives thousands of miles away from her family and thus has very little in the way of traditional traditions in the course of the year. So I love the traditions that emerge among the three of us, and I especially love the traditions that emerge among our friends-like-family here. So for next year, a Hanukkah pineapple.

Who knows, you might like one, too.

And on another note entirely: your comments have been so kind on those last couple of posts. When life gets stressful, it's an amazing comfort that people in blogland are simply and quietly leaving comments. I've appreciated it. Thank you.