Valentine's Day: Make It Memorable In Your Own Way

As a kid I made Valentine's Day cards for my parents. I remember one year I created two giant hearts made out of red posterboard and using a mixture of pink, red and white sprinkles I outlined each of them.  I'm confident my father was somewhat surprised, and probably amused, when he read the message I had written in the middle of the heart I had made for him,"World's Best Mechanic!" My dad wasn't a mechanic. While he definitely liked working on his car, technically he was a sociology professor.


My dad affixed the card to his wall in the kitchen and that made me very happy.  Such a simple thing, but to this day, I can close my eyes and remember the exact placement of that heart on the wall.


Last year the kids made breakfast for my husband and me. It was akin to waking up at a private Bed & Breakfast- discovering we had two young innkeepers in our kitchen. Given the basketball schedule, going away for a romantic weekend just wasn't going to happen. So our kids brought in the romance in their own way, and it was really sweet.  And memorable.


This year we've been snowed in for days, we've had a helluva lot of family togetherness.  I told my husband all I want for Valentine's Day is Diet Coke with Lime, since we ran out of it days ago, and I miss having it. And if he gets it for me, you bet it will be a gift I remember!


The point I'm trying to make is memorable holidays need not be lavish, nor time consuming unless you like them that way. And if you do, that's fine. If you don't, that's okay too.  Not all holidays are observed the same way by everyone. Sometimes they aren't observed at all.  Whatever you decide to do will be fine. Even if it's not perfect it will still be memorable.

Happy New Year! Ring It In By Letting Yourself Go

Last week my younger son was going through a bin of old photos. You probably have a similar box or bin, it's the one filled with the pictures you swear you will some day label and organize.  Every time I see the bin I feel like crap. I've even gone so far as to hide the bin way in the back of a closet so I can purposefully keep it out of sight and out of mind.  I hated being reminded of what I considered a failed New Years resolution..


Not only had I spent years resolving to organize the photos, I'd spent years not organizing the photos and feeling immense guilt.  The guilt was so terrible I would stick my fingers in my ears and do the 'lalalalalalala I can't hear you!" if anyone mentioned the "S Word" i.e. scrapbooking. And forget about going to one of those Creative Memory parties. My anxiety was so bad that when I heard the words "Acid Free" I silently contemplated if an "Acid Trip" might not somehow work out better for me. And I've never dropped acid. Ever.


As they used to say in the 70's, "Man, this wasn't a good scene." So you can imagine how lousy I felt when my son dragged out the bin. I felt the guilt bubble up as I looked down at the piles of pictures.  But then something happened and everything changed. My son began taking out the pictures and asking me about who was in them, when the photo was shot, which camera had been used, and who had taken the picture. As I started to tell him about family members and our friends, sharing with him the life happening through the lense so to speak, I realized I no longer had to feel guilty about not organizing the pictures. It was okay.  In fact it was even better than okay.


I concluded it was a good thing I had repeatedly blown my New Years resolution.  As a direct result of my actions (or really my lack of them) my son and I spent a couple of hours looking through the bin and talking together. No way in hell would that have happened the same way had all the pictures been perfectly organized and catalogued.


Do you have a guilt you've been carrying over with you from year to year? This is the year to just let it go.

How I Didn't Pass Over Easter

Last night we were driving home from our Spring Break break. The Huz and I were discussing the entire Disney Debacle, as it is known in our household. Son Two was fast asleep, but Son One (our 12 year old) was listening in on our discussion and occasionally interjecting his own ideas/comments. During the course of our car-based convo about Easter and Passover observances, The Huz, responding to Son One's question "Do Jews ever do anything for Easter?" answered, "Yes, your mother was once the Easter Bunny!" Naturally this newly discovered tidbit about mom surprised Son One.

It's not a deep dark secret. It's true, during the Gulf War, I was in fact the Easter Bunny.

It's one of those "Before we had kids..." stories. (Which, by the way, most kids really enjoy hearing because it gives them perspective that their parents have other roles in addition to being mom and/or dad.) I wish I had the picture to post, but it would take me until next Passover to dig up the photo since it isn't a digital one. So you'll just have to make due with the retelling of the tale (tail?!) as I told Son One last night:

During the Gulf War, Daddy and I lived in Louisiana. Daddy was assigned to an Air Refueling Squadon at Barksdale Air Force Base. You weren't born yet. During our first year of marriage, Daddy was deployed 11 of those twelve months. One day while Daddy was away, I picked up the ringing phone and on the other end was the wife of Daddy's squadron commander, Ann.

"Hi Devra, all is okay, Pete is fine, I'm calling to ask for a favor." You see, back then, we all prefaced our calls to one another with "all is okay, husband/wife is fine" because sadly, a call from the Base always made our hearts skip a beat because it could mean the difference between knowing your loved one is coming home and life as it were continuing, or knowing your dreams of the future were ending because your loved one has been wounded or killed. That is the reality of war. Your dad and I lived that reality every day during the Gulf War and during Kosovo you lived it too when Daddy was deployed for all those months.

Do you remember sitting in our backyard in Kansas and looking up in the sky as we both heard a KC-135 fly overhead and you pointed upward? Do you remember what you called those planes as they flew over our house? Son One answered, "I called it a Sky Daddy." Yup, that's it alright. So you see, this a lot like the reality many families are currently facing with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a chilling reality our family understands too. We've talked about it a lot, so you know what empathy means; understanding we're all in this together. (cue the High school Musical soundtrack gentlemen!)

On other end of the line Ann is saying, "Devra, we are having an Easter Egg Hunt for the children in our squadron. Devra, would you please be our Easter Bunny?" I was quiet for a minute. Did I hear her right? I was being asked to be the squadron's Easter Bunny! Going thru my mind was,"Hello? I'm Jewish. I don't observe Easter", but maybe Ann had forgotten since The Huz is not Jewish? I gently reminded,"Ann you know I am Jewish, right?"

Ann responded that yes, she knew, and was asking me anyway. Huh?She then explained how when she was growing up she had once worked in a synagogue and everyone at that synagogue made her feel included, even though she was very openly Catholic. No one was trying to make her be Jewish, she understood that, they only wanted her to feel welcome too. Not feel excluded.

Ann went on to tell me she how she did briefly consider whether asking me to be the Easter Bunny would be offensive, but felt it more important to include me in a squadron event, than risk me feeling excluded from the event because I don't observe Easter. Ann told me it was more offensive to her not to ask. She explained her reasoning, "This is a time when we all need to be around one another. I know we're not all Catholic like me, we're not all Jewish like you, but I also know are all people who care about each other deeply. I don't want anyone isolated or excluded for any reason. If I need to figure out a way to include everyone, I am going to make it happen. I hope you will be our bunny." (and if you are reading this and tears are falling? Me too.)

Ann then told me she thought I would be "such a wonderful bunny", sharing how she had observed me with the squadron children at Hail and Farewells, and felt "your personality is perfect to be the Easter Bunny, we need someone to be upbeat and someone who could really play with the kids and get them to participate. Distract us all from the worry for a while." Something,she said, our squadron really needed as much as possible, given the stress the war is putting on everyone's family. The kids were indeed having a hard time. War is, after all, hell.

Ann wasn't at all surprised by my answer, "Ann, of course I will be the Easter Bunny. What time do you need me to be there?" After I hung up the phone, I went digging in our closet for Daddy's size 14 White Nike Hi Top's which I knew would make the perfect rabbit feet.

You see, my first thought wasn't,"I can't believe they're even having an Easter egg hunt in the first place when they know not everyone celebrates." No, my first thought was, "It must be so difficult for these families-my Air Force family of friends-to be observing their special holiday without their loved ones and since this isn't my holiday, why not be their Easter bunny?" Why not let them have their holiday, after all no one was denying me Passover by including me in Easter.



I also thought that if agree to be the Easter Bunny, this means all of the families observing Easter would be able play and laugh with their children, enjoying a common tradition, as they ran around the Barksdale Visitor Center looking for eggs and giggling like crazy. While it may not have been *my* tradition, it was theirs, and I wanted to be there with them and help them have it.


And then I stopped in my bunny tracks as it hit me that I meant enough to them, they wanted me to be there too! And that,Son One, is how mommy was once the Easter Bunny.



It is also known as the story of, "How a nice Jewish girl like me, wound up in an Easter Bunny costume like that."



The take away from this? It is better to include somebunny than exclude somebunny. All it requires is a little thinking outside the bun.