SOOO FULL I Can Barely Move

Before I start, I want to mention that this is my last post of the semester. I really enjoyed sharing my traditions as well as learning some of my friends traditions throughout the semester and I hope you enjoyed reading them. I will be writing a blog next semester too but probably not this one as I have discussed most of the major holidays. However, I hope you follow along for that blog too.

So, now on to my last post which is about one of my favorite holidays and the one you all of you in college can't wait for so you can leave, Thanksgiving. (If you call it Turkey Day I will probably threaten you, just ask my friends.)

This week, I decided to complete the cycle of my blog and talk just about my Thanksgiving traditions this week since there is a lot to them. However, PLEASE share your traditions in the comments!

Leading up to Thanksgiving, my family puts bags on our neighbors' mailboxes for our neighborhood food drive. Then we help the day of by collecting bags at the club house to give the people running the event a break and help load the truck. I love seeing our neighbors come together to help people they don't know and probably never will know.

For Thanksgiving itself my dad and I are the ones that cook and my mom and brother clean the house and set the table.

My dad and I plan out our menu in depth after looking at different recipes online. Then we look around our house to see what we have and whatever we are missing we then go shopping for on Monday or Tuesday. We tend to start cooking Wednesday afternoon and evening because we always have lots of dishes of large quantities to make.

Thursday, we wake up pretty early and watch the NYC Macy's Day parade while we cook. We also switch to the Philadelphia parade to watch my high school band march in the parade. This year my brother will be playing saxophone in the marching band to help welcome Santa in. Once the parade is over we watch the annual dog show, all the while cooking in the kitchen.

Photo By: Ricky Brigante

My favorite dish to make is our double baked sweet potatoes. To make the sweet potatoes, we make the potatoes and then let them cool slightly. The then potatoes are cut in half and my dad and I scoop out the inside leaving a little "flesh" of the potato on the skin so it is like a boat. The inside of the potatoes all goes into one big bowl. Then, we add heavy cream, nutmeg, and a few other ingredients to the bowl and mash it all up. Then, we refill the potato skin boats with the sweet potato filling . Once all the skins are filled and on a pan we cover them in marshmallows and bake them for a second time. These sweet potatoes are everyone's favorite. My one cousin has threatened to not show up unless we have the potatoes.

Photo By: Mike Mozart

Speaking of who comes on Thanksgiving, our guests normally include my immediate family and my cousins and their son. This year my other cousin and his daughters will be joining us. No matter how many or how few people we have for Thanksgiving my dad and I cook as though we have an army coming.

One year we had lots of leftovers so the next day we invited some family friends over for dessert. My dad and I had put lots of time into dessert that year and had made a 7 layer death by chocolate cake. Each level was chocolate and it was very rich. In fact, it was so rich that after eating some our friend needed to get some fresh air to clear his head, I certainly didn't blame him. However, this was my favorite dessert we made because of how much work went into it; it really became something to be proud of.

Very Similar Photo and Recipe to this cake by: The Slow Roasted Italian

At some point during the day in my house, we normally watch the Eagles game whether it be before dinner, between dinner and dessert or after dessert. Since my cousins are huge Eagles fans this is always fun. My brother, cousin and I also have a tradition of going in the basement after dinner and before dessert and creating a haunted house. While super cheesy, and often not to great, we make our mothers go through them and if we are lucky the dads. My mom said she expects us to do it must years until we have kids of our own to do it to us.

Overall, Thanksgiving is a time to eat great food- cranberry sauce is my favorite- and spend time with some family you don't get to see all the time. One last thing we do every year is go around the table and say what we are thankful for that year. I think this is a wonderful tradition to take a break from our lives and be thankful for those around us and remember who is there for us.

The year Hanukkah and Thanksgiving overlapped

So, what do you do on Thanksgiving and what is your favorite Thanksgiving food?

Boom, Crackle, Pop!

July 4th, the day we celebrate the birth of our nation, sounds pretty important, right?

Well for such an important sounding holiday I certainly don't do anything extravagant or overly important. I decided to ask around to see if this was just my family or others too. Ultimately I have come to the conclusion that as a country we do much to celebrate the 4th of July.

With that being said their are some traditions my friends, as well as myself, follow. Some people I talked to go to picnics and eat lots of different kinds of food, specifically watermelon, while others hang out with family and play baseball. However most people I asked said they watch fireworks.

Photo By: Ginny

Since that's a rather broad tradition, I'll focus on the two different firework traditions my family has.

On the fourth, my family sits on the hill behind my house that faces the main road since we can see fireworks in the surrounding neighborhoods and from the local amusement park, Sesame Place, from there. Last year I went to the mall parking lot with some friends earlier in the night to watch the sesame fireworks a bit closer, before the hill. Normally, while sitting on the hill our friends/neighbors come and join us to watch the fireworks. Sometimes we also light sparklers with our friends while waiting for fireworks.

One year, there were extravagant fireworks in the neighborhood across the street from mine so we set off in the car to find them. However, after at least an hour searching for the origin of the fireworks we could not find what house was setting them off.

While this was fun, my favorite memory of this night is the year we were sitting on the hill and very drunk man in his thirties walked by us. He couldn't even walk in a straight line and by the time he got to us we could tell he reeked of alcohol. He was a very happy drunk and started freaking out over the fact that things were exploding in the sky, fireworks. He then asked us where the neighborhood next to us was. We told him and then he continued to ask us repeatedly and kept laughing. He eventually started to walk in the direction of his apparent destination. In that direction there is a large pond down the hill next to the sidewalk. Once he got to the pond he appeared to walk into it however he quickly reappeared and laid down in the grass. Eventually he got back up and walked towards the pond and then turned around and headed back towards the neighborhood he had asked us for. By the end we were all laughing so hard we were crying.

Our other tradition happens a few days after the 4th of July. We go to our neighboring town for their "First Fourth" event. This event is held at a local middle school and includes lots of food for purchase as well as various other vendors. We set up chairs as close as we can to the fence and then walk around looking for friends and play Frisbee, catch, or play with glow sticks and toy helicopters as music plays. Once it gets dark, the music stops and the fireworks sponsored by a local Italian restaurant begin. Eventually, the show ends with a firework in the shape of an American flag and that marks the end of my Fourth of July traditions until the next year!

Photo By: Kara Seymour

Photo By: Jeff Werner

So, where do you watch fireworks or what else do you do to celebrate the Fourth of July? Please share in the comments below!

This is Halloween, This is Halloween!!

Well for someone who writes about holidays and traditions there is really only one holiday my blog could possibly be about and that is Halloween.

I'm sure all of you have new Halloween plans this year, being in college; however, I figured this week it would be interesting to find out what my friends normally do on Halloween and compare their traditions to mine. This was the first holiday I actually had overlap with my friends' traditions.

I'm going to start with the days leading up to Halloween. In my house, sometime during the month of October my family carves pumpkins, something my dad particularly excels at. This year I was not home to do so since I'm at college. So, when my mom came to visit earlier this month, she brought a care package from my father. There really is no way to explain it so I'll just let you take a look.

In my home town, along with another friend's, we do something called "being booed." This is when you make a sign that says "you've been booed" and leave it with instructions of what to do and a treat for the family. The instructions say to make a copy of the flyer, put it on your door, and then put the copy as well as some kind of treat on a friend or neighbors door. The idea is to create a long train of houses that have been booed. It is a great way to build the neighborhood spirit and keep your friends guessing who booed them.

Picture From: Melissa

This next tradition is a bit more malicious and is probably not one you have heard of unless you are from Eastern PA, New Jersey, or Michigan. We actually celebrate the night before Halloween, which we call Mischief Night. On Mischief Night kids, mostly teens, go out and cause trouble. It mostly consists of putting toilet paper on houses and bushes or egging houses; however, it can sometimes escalate. Before I started talking to people from not Eastern PA and New Jersey I assumed it practiced all over the country, but as you can see below it certainly is not.

Photo From: Policy Map

While I have never toilet papered or egged houses my family does a sort of our own mischief night sometime the week before Halloween. My brother and I always try to scare one of my good friends and one of his friends, they are sisters, who live down the street from us. We always buy something in an attempt to scare them and they do the same to us. The decorations range from creepy posters and gel "blood" prints on their glass door, to hanging skeletons, to noise making props. Normally the one to get scared is the daughter slightly older to me either on her way out in the morning or night when she forgets it is there.  

Eventually October 31st arrives, my friends here and I have all gone trick-or-treating at some point. Personally, this will be the first year I have ever not gone trick-or-treating and it feels kind of weird. Every year I dress up and in the more recent years my best friend comes over and we go around my neighborhood to get our free candy. One house near meets up a "haunted garage" where a few houses worth of neighbors set up a table with food and drinks to keep themselves entertained. Then the trick-or-treaters walk into the garage and get candy from each couple. However there is also a treat to this stop. They have lots of decorations set up and at least one of the apparent mannequins is actually one of the husbands. My brother, friend, and I know this and always approach very paranoid. Normally, getting the candy is no big deal; however, once we go to leave there is someone, the "mannequin," following us and we set off running.

Left to Right: Maleficent, Jafar, Queen of Hearts

Normally, my friends and I get a significant amount of candy to make us happy for the night. However, one of my friends here told me how she always takes a pillowcase to gather candy and refuses to stop until it is completely filled. I also use a pillowcase, but normally just keep going until it gets late so people stop answering their doors or the bag gets too heavy to carry on. When I was younger, and even to some extent today, as soon as my brother and I got home we dumped our candy on the dinning room table my dad and mom would go through all the candy and make sure it wasn't tampered with and then put it in large bowls we would eat from for weeks.

Then just like that, Halloween is over and we wait until the next year. I'm just going to end with a quick few notes on what my friends told me they do that I had never heard of. For example, my one friend's cousins have a Halloween "fairy" that they can trade candy in for a toy. Another friend hates Halloween because she believes October is cursed and then celebrates the next day when November starts. Finally a few friends joked, I hope, about sacrificing people and talked about satanic rituals, demonic possessions, and minor vandalism.

On that note, have a great Halloween and stay safe!

Please share your family traditions for Halloween and even your favorite costumes you have worn over the years in the comments.

Happy Birthday to You... and Many More!!!

So this week there are no holidays; however, earlier this week was my 18th and half birthday! No, I don't do anything for half birthdays, but I figured it would be interesting to see what other people do to celebrate their birthdays.

Unfortunately I was pretty disappointed with the results. All anyone seemed to want to talk about was cake. That is it, except for my one smart alack friend who talked about how every year on his birthday he adds one to his previous year- meaning on his birthday this year, he is currently 18, he will tell everyone he is, 19- which he will be. He was just being annoying and saying he literally turns a year older each year, like EVERYONE else. One other friend didn't mention cake either, since her birthday falls on Memorial Day, see my last post, and therefore everyone always forgets about it. Her one redeeming factor is the fact that there are always great Memorial Day sales.

So, let's move onto the delicious cake. There are lots of different cakes my friends have on their birthdays. A few friends said their go to birthday cake is ice cream cake. My one friend, who worked at an ice cream store, would always make the cake for her birthday party, so we would have something personalized to eat after a round of birthday laser tag. Another friend, said she always has to have sprinkles on her cake to make it a birthday cake. The final friend I asked said she always has a cookie cake. Apparently her dad complains every year because he feels like a cookie cake is not cake and he is being deprived of a true birthday cake.

Picture By: CJ Sorg

Well, all this talk about cake made me think about my cake tradition. In my house on every birthday we don't have a normal cake, we have the infamous "Glatzer Family Birthday Cake." This cake consists of levels of chocolate pudding and graham crackers. To make the cake you have to use cook and serve pudding, no instant pudding, whole milk, and normal graham crackers for the cake to be successful. Since my mom normally makes the cake, she has tried changing some of these ingredients and it never works, as there is only one way to make the real "Glatzer Family Birthday Cake." The "recipe" came from my grandmother and it truly is as simple as it sounds: cook the pudding and put a layer of it in on top of a base of gram crackers in a glass container, followed by graham cracker, alternating until you get to the top layer of pudding, which is normally about 4 layers up, then pop it in the fridge and enjoy when it is cooled. Any extra pudding is eaten off the spoon by whoever's birthday it is. Normally, the cake is made the night before so it has time to set.

When it is time to eat the cake it is topped with the one and only chocolate whipped cream. The person whose birthday it is has their piece served on the "Glatzer Family Birthday Plate" which my mom made when we were younger at a pottery painting place, similar to 2000 degrees downtown. The plate is speckled green with a cake in the center and it says "Glatzer Family Birthday Plate." Any other meal we eat throughout the day is served on the birthday plate also. Sometimes we will go out for a birthday dinner, which a lot of my friends also mentioned doing in addition to eating cake, in that case the birthday plate just isn't used for dinner.

Since I'm on the topic of my birthday celebration, there are two other traditions we have in my house. My mom always puts up decorations in our house, with the standard number representing our age on the back of the front door and often streamers going down the stairs or banners hanging from the molding. The decorations are never exactly the same but a nice touch.

Photo By: Alaine Ashton

 For my mom's birthday, we try our best to do the same but never manage the same decorations she does for the rest of us. She also manages to put balloons in our rooms and then the rest of the family, including the dog if we can wake her up, walks into the birthday person's room and sings happy birthday to wake them up.

A simple tradition but one none the less I know will come every year and I look forward to it.

So, what do you do for you birthday and of course what kind of cake do you eat? Share in the comments!

A Monday to Honor our Veterans

Memorial Day is a day to go to the shore, grill some good food, spend time with family and friends, spend time in the finally open pool and unofficially start the summer- at least from where I'm from. After our three-day weekend every May to celebrate Memorial Day my classmates would always reflect on their weekend festivities, which normally included one of the aforementioned activities, with a desire to go back to them and just start summer already. Where I'm from, summer tends to start the second or third week of June, so once Memorial Day hits, all anyone can think of is that final bell ringing allowing them to start their summer.

It's almost summer...

My family doesn't do a picnic; instead we go to my town's annual Memorial Day parade. We have been going to the parade since I was born and every year we sit in the exact same spot- more on that in just a minute. The parade begins at 11AM, so logically we get there by 8AM or 9AM at the absolute latest. It's always an argument as to what time to leave in the morning so we get our seats and don't have to sit around too long. We always settle on just sitting around, which is fine by me. So once we arrive in my town's borough we park next to the Continental Tavern, a local restaurant and get our folding lawn chairs out to claim our territory in front of the restaurant on the sidewalk, right on the curb, slightly from the corner. 

Where we sit. Photo by the Continental Tavern

As soon as we set up, we all sit down for a while and watch the passerby. Whenever people ask what time the parade starts my dad replies, "What parade?" and my mom laughs and says 11AM  we are just crazy and are here 3 hours early. Soon after my mom, brother, and I walk down to WAWA, not Sheetz, to grab some breakfast. We take my dad's order, normally sausage and cheese on a croissant, since he stays back to guard our stuff. If it's one of the years we bring my dog she sometimes stays with him and other times goes on a stroll with us. Depending on how much time we have we take a walk down the canal or just around town before getting the food at WAWA and heading back to keep my dad company. By the time we get back the parade appears to be going backwards as lots of people drive by us to get to the starting point down the road. Whenever we see families we know with kids in the marching band drive by we yell their names and they wave back, honking their horns, as they go to join the rest of the ensemble.

Slowly more and more people begin to set up shop down the main road of the town that the parade will go down. There is always one man who walks down the road selling red poppies to support the troops. We know it's almost parade time when the family who always sits next to us sets up their blanket and the cops arrive to start directing traffic at the intersection. At this point we make sure we don't need to quickly run across the street to Starbucks to "borrow" their bathroom before the parade begins.

The parade is about to begin so the roads are shut down and people swamp the road where they are allowed to stand and getting ready to welcome in the parade. A couple of years the parade began with a flyover of military jets and everyone was cheering. Every other year a cop car leads the parade. Throughout the parade we see local government members, a variety of organizations, our high school's marching band, firefighters, and the most important people of the day- the veterans. 

Photo By: Tim Oller

My favorite part of this parade is the fact that when the veterans do pass us everyone watching stands up and applauds them, to thank them for their service. Once they pass we sit back down and enjoy the rest of the parade until more veterans pass by and then everyone is right back on their feet, no matter how hot out it is. I think it's great how people realize the real reason we have off on Memorial Day is to remember those soldiers we lost and honor the veterans and current soldiers, rather than just going to the beach or pool. However, people should definitely enjoy their unofficial start to summer, just without forgetting about the real meaning behind the day. 

So what do you do to celebrate Memorial Day and honor our troops Please share in the comments.

3...2...1...Happy New Year!!!

Midnight approaches, friends and family gather, the ball begins to drop, the countdown begins, midnight strikes, and the new year has begun. But how do people really celebrate?

My family has a rather simple, uneventful, but still entertaining tradition. Most years, we go to our family friend's house and meet the other families that make up the "Iffers" a group of four interfaith families. All of the parents took classes together when they were deciding what religion to raise their children and have remained friends since, so all of the kids know each other and are only a few years apart. Each family brings an appetizer or dessert and the host family supplies the main dinner, normally Italian food. One of the families is always assigned dessert since they often get there late. However, they always make it in time for dinner.

After we eat, the kids head down to the basement and switch between Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest's pre-show and whatever review of the year we can find to make fun of. We all take turns watching from the couch and fighting over the chiropractor chair the family has in the basement, which flips 180 degrees around. While silly, it is something fun we do to keep ourselves entertained. At some point during the night we often play a round of pool or some other game to keep ourselves busy.

Eventually we go upstairs and watch the end of Dick Clark's show with the parents, take pictures, put on hats and get noisemakers, and then countdown as we watch the ball drop. After the ball drops, we all run outside and watch our friend's dad shoot off fireworks in the cul-de-sac. A few times we ran inside as it felt like the ashes were going to fall on us while still on fire. After the fireworks my family heads home for the night. We don't have any traditions for New Year's Day.

Photo By: Swallowtail Garden Seeds

Since my tradition is rather simple in comparison to past posts I decided to ask a few friends' what they do and got an interesting mix of responses.

One of my friends told me about her two traditions she has had throughout the years. When she was younger she would always go to her dad's house, in the middle of no where, and bang on pots and pans at midnight while her neighbor shot a shotgun into the air to make a loud noise to ring the new year in. Since high school began, where she met her best friend, she has always gone to her friends house and done a three movie marathon. They take a break at midnight to watch the ball drop and drink sparkling grape juice. Then, they finish the last movie and go to bed.

I had a few other friends who simply hung out with friends and family, played games, watched movies, and drank sparkling grape juice.

Photo By: Michael Bentley

Another one of my friends is a new year's baby, so he said he gets to celebrate his birthday on New Year's. At midnight, his family eats cake and then they go to bed.

Speaking of food, my aunt and uncle eat black eyed peas and ham for good luck.

I found out that Carlisle, PA, my friend's hometown, lowers a small car from a crane in the town square. After the car is lowered at midnight there is music and fireworks. Her family also puts paraffin in lanterns, makes a wish, and lets them float away every year.

Photo By: Nick Bramhall

In Pittsburgh, my friend goes with her family for pizza and then into the city for First Night in Pittsburgh. This includes fireworks starting at 6pm over the river and more fireworks when the ball drops.

My roommate told me about the traditions that she knows in Japan, which include eating soba noodles on New Year's Eve to have a long life, eating lots of delicious food on New Year's Day, visiting temples, and watching fireworks.

Interestingly, when I asked my friends what they do for the New Year's I didn't just get traditions for the secular New Year that occurs December 31st-January 1st. My Jewish friend said she eats apples and honey on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year-see my earlier post about the holiday. However, she also included that last secular New Year she knitted while watching Food Network and Pitbull's New Year Revolution.

Photo By: slgckgc

My other friend told me about her Chinese New Year's tradition where she eats lots of good Chinese food, calls her family in Taiwan to wish them good health, and gives and receives money within her family. Plus when she attended a Chinese school they would have a New Year's party that was a blast.

I thought it was interesting to see how everyone I talked to about New Years had different traditions but they all revolved around being with family or friends and counting down to the moment the new year began. It seems like everyone enjoys welcoming in the new year as it symbolizes a new start but no one has an crazy traditions.

Please share any traditions you have! I hope to hear at least one unique one!

Christmas from the Jew's Perspective

On Christmas I eat Chinese food and go to the movies.

Just kidding. (Yes I know it's only October, but I am going to talk about Christmas since this is our first cold week and, as I mentioned in a previous post, this is one of my favorite traditions.)

While the stereotype that Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas and go to the movies is certainly true, I know many Jews that do just this, I am not one of the ones that follow this tradition. A major reason for this is my interfaith family, which was explained in one of my earlier posts.

Before I talk about what I actually do on Christmas, I want to talk about my family's tradition that takes places the Sunday before Christmas, or two Sundays before Christmas if Christmas is on a Monday or Tuesday. This tradition is our annual Holiday party. This year will be our 23rd annual holiday party.

As the party approaches, my family begins to send out the many invites, decorate the house, set up chairs, get the caroling books, put out the name tags, and buy the drinks and ice. The food will come when all of our guests arrive and bring a dessert or appetizer. If you were to walk into our house around the holidays it would be clear that it is an interfaith household. We decorate with stockings, Santas, ornament Christmas trees, Christmas lights, Hanukkah ornaments, dreidels, and lots of menorahs.

As the day finally arrives, we start the morning by filling the ice buckets with drinks, locking my dog in a room upstairs, hanging the silly signs my dad makes- such as directions for the coat room- and finishing any last minute set up details. At 2:00 PM, the guests start to arrive, my uncle is almost always the first one to arrive.

The First to Arrive

We tend to invite over 200 people, in my not-so-large house, and the party is an open house until 5:00 PM. The most crowded time tends to be 3:00 PM-4:00 PM, where my dad plays Christmas carols on the piano, along with a few Jewish highlights, and my mom leads the singing. I have memories of skipping around the house singing the 12 days of Christmas to get everyone involved.

Caroling

During the caroling, anyone who wants one gets a book with lyrics and bells to ring. As soon as one song ends, people begin to yell the number of the next song they want to hear and my dad starts playing the next song. Eventually, the caroling is over and some people leave, others just get there, and some stay past 5:00 PM.

Song book

Over the years, we have had some unique experiences at the party. Such as the year it snowed, a lot, and we thought nobody would show up but it ended up being packed since other events got cancelled. One year it happened to be Hanukkah, so we lit all of the Menorahs. We have over 10 menorahs, so on the eighth night, which it happened to be, the house gets very warm and bright.

Our Menorahs

My favorite one of these unique experiences had to be the day the party fell on the Eagles vs. Giants game. The game began during the caroling hour, so my cousins, all huge Eagles' fans, and some of our friends snuck down to the basement to watch the game. After the caroling, my mom asked me where everybody went because she could see the front door from where she had stood and knew people had not left. I told her to go look in the basement. To her surprise, she found close to fifty people filling my basement and the stairs, all to see the game. I had been downstairs earlier and knew any surface you could possibly sit on was filled, people were standing downstairs, the steps had people two deep, and my adult cousins were yelling at the kids who were Giants' fans. It was great. To top it all off, after the party my one cousins, the biggest Eagle fan of them all, stayed and helped us move in our brand new flat screen TV; he was a bit annoyed he had to watch the game on a small TV. I will never forget that entertaining year of the Holiday Party.

The Food

Eventually, everyone leaves and we put the food away and throw out all the trash. Although sad, we know the party will resume a year later and we will see at least our family over the next few days for the Christmas festivities.

On that note, what do I actually do on Christmas? Christmas Eve we always go to my cousins' house. We meet an uncle, aunt, and more cousins there. When we were younger, and even still now, my cousins and I used NORAD to track Santa and we would update everyone so people knew when to leave. One year there was a short power outage and we started freaking out thinking that Santa was almost there and was telling us to leave. Now, all my cousins know Santa isn't real, but we still track him for traditions sake. However, we have increased our tracking capability from the website, to a phone number, and most recently to an app. At the Christmas Eve party, we eat lots of food, cookies, and always have shrimp as an appetizer. We also take a family picture by the Christmas tree. Once we leave, my family has, a few times, gone to our local farm's drive through light show or just drove home and looked for Rudolf's glowing nose on the way.

Standard Christmas Eve Pictures

On Christmas Day, my family, even though we are Jewish, does gifts at our stockings- we don't have a tree. The gifts tend to be something small or something my parents decided to wait to give us at Christmas instead of Hanukkah. In our family, we do not get "twice the gifts," as some people assume all interfaith families do. It used to be that we would then go to a brunch at the Sheraton, where my parents got married. However, more recently we have been going to my other cousin's house for a big family lunch/dinner. This is a chance to see some of the same family as Christmas Eve and some others who had other plans the night before.

While not the traditional religious traditions of Christmas or the stereotypical Jewish Christmas, I love the traditions my family has leading up to Christmas and on Christmas. These traditions are some of the ones I look forward to most every year.

I'm sure many of you have unique Christmas traditions please share them in the comments!

Fasting and Food

So you may have noticed I left class not to long after it began on Wednesday. Thanks to Professor Kramer's understanding I was able to attend class and Yom Kippur services this Wednesday. I spent the morning at services. The rest of the day, actually starting at 6:30PM Tuesday, I was fasting, until 7:30PM wednesday- a full 25 hours. Fasting means no food or drinks, including water, for the entire 25 hours. This fasting is part of the major tradition of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. The idea is that you are repenting for your sins and hope to be written in the "Book of Life" for the coming year.

Photo by: Gather the Jews Staff

At the end of the fast I went to Hillel, the main Jewish group on campus, and had some bagels, like every good Jew does, along with some other  delicious additions. Although slightly different from my usual tradition of going to my aunt's to break fast with bagels, whitefish, and lox I still got to eat bagels so I was happy.

Alright, enough with the not eating and let's talk about my favorite Jewish holiday, which involves plenty of eating, Passover.

Passover is when we remember when the Jews were slaves in Egypt and their journey that took place to leave. Our family holds two seders every year with my aunt and uncle, cousins when they are in town, and my uncle's family. These are basically services with dinner tied in- they are held at the dining room table.  This holiday probably has the most traditions of any holiday so let me focus on the key ones and my favorites as to not make this a never ending blog- my favorite tradition is the last one so keep reading!

First off, a major part of Passover is the fact that we eat matzah. For those of you that don't know, this is a non-rising cracker, similar to a communion cracker, that is finished cooking within 18 minutes of the water touching the flour. This is the only type of "bread" we can eat for 8 days. During passover, you can not eat anything the rises- such as bread, cake, pasta,ect. Therefore, matzah becomes the way you make sandwiches and matzah meal the way you make other foods-it acts as similarly to flour.

Photo by: Paurian

For those of you that have tried matzah you may love it. But let me tell you after eating the bland, hard, dry, cardboard-like cracker for a week it is not something you enjoy eating any other time of the year. However, everyone loves the matzah man and his song! We always loved listening to him sing at my religious school when growing up, and when I was working there this past year.

There are also the standard holiday traditions of always eating gefilte fish, boiled eggs, charosoet-chopped apples, cinnamon, and grape juice- among other foods.

Photo by: Slgckgc

Most of these foods have specific reasons behind why they are eaten. However for the point of this blog I want to focus on the traditions that are specific to my family. So here are my favorite two parts of Passover.

First off, there is a prayer called Eliyahu HaNavi. The song is used to welcome the prophet Elijah into our seder through our open door to have some wine from the cup we left filled with wine just for him. One year, my dad pointed out Elijah would be pretty drunk by the time he went to all of the Jewish households. So every year, we add in hiccups between certain lyrics to act as though we are a drunk Elijah. It's almost as if the melody of the song was created for the hiccups.

Elijah's Cup- Photo by: World of Judaica

Finally, I saved the best for last. We end every seder with the song Chad Gadya. This song is sang in English and pretty much means one little goat. The lyrics are pretty simple and act in a similar way to the 12 days of Christmas by building up and then going through the entire list of what happened in the song's story again. 

Throughout the entire song my dad has come up with sound effects for each part of the song that our entire family now sings. Towards the end of the story the songs says "then came the water, that quenched the fire..." Well for some reason when my cousin was little, he is now in his 30s, he decided to dip his hand in his glass of water and flick some water at my father. For anyone who knows my father, they know this was a bad idea. On the second night of Passover that year, my dad secretly brought a water gun and when my cousin flicked my dad with water again he soaked my cousin as much as he could with a water pistol. 

Well this became a yearly battle and continues to this day whenever my cousin is in town for Passover. As my dad says he always had my cousin beat since he bought the first water gun and had the debit card; he was always one level ahead. Each year this water gun battle has escalated. One year my dad came in dressed in a garbage bag with a backpack filled of water and pretty much a fire hose- as he called it "the finger of G-d," another year he brought a water gun so large it needed a kick stand, and this past year he brought a gun with clips to replace the water. My cousin seemed to never be able to keep up. However, they have worked together on a few occasions, such as the year they both had bubble guns to get my paranoid uncle with.

The only rule that has ever existed is my father will never shoot first; my cousin must start it. 

Here is a video to help explain how Chad Gadya works in my family. This was created by my cousin who thought he finally had my dad beat. Be sure to listen to the sound effects and of course watch for the water gun fight. 

Pictures from last year:

As always I can't wait for Passover this year and hope my cousin will be in town, as it always makes for an interesting night.

My Interfaith Family

My mom was raised Catholic, my dad was raised Jewish, and my brother and I are Jewish. Many of you may have just gone, what? This tends to confuse people since many people are under the impression that in the Jewish religion, along with many others, the child's religion is based off the mother's religion.

Photo by Joseph Saraceno

While this is true in many religions, let me explain how it worked for my family. Before my parents were even married, they decided to attend a few courses about being an interfaith family and how to decide how to raise their children from a religious standpoint. After taking the course, they decided they would raise any potential future children as both Jewish and Catholic and then let their children decide when they got older how they wanted to continue either faith. My parents ended up getting married and before my mom got pregnant with me, she decided she was no longer comfortable raising any kids in both religions - she wanted them to choose one or the other. She felt that her kids needed an identity along with something to relate with, and she wanted religion to provide this for them. At this point, my mom attended a weekly introduction to Judaism class because she had a feeling it would be easier for her to accept raising her children Jewish than my dad to raise his children Catholic. After all, Judaism is the basis with which Catholicism is based off of, since it is the Old Testament. While taking the class, she decided she was comfortable raising any child as Jewish. However, she was not comfortable enough with the decision to let my grandparents, both quite religious in their own ways, know until she was 8 months pregnant with me. When she finally told them, both her parents and my dad's parents were accepting and happy with the decision. Since then, my family on both sides has always been accepting of the fact that my brother and I are being raised Jewish.

I will get more into how this has impacted our traditions in just a moment.

To make sure there were no religious issues later on, such as when my brother and I went to have our b'nai mitzvot or get married, our entire family participated in a Mikvah when we were both young. This is pretty much a conversion for the children so we would be considered fully Jewish. However, my mother has not converted and I'm not sure if she ever will. She always said she wouldn't convert while her parents were alive since they were devout Catholics and raised her to be one her entire young adult life. We have recently lost both of my grandparents on her side, but either way, I respect her decision to either remain Catholic or convert to Judaism. She has been very involved in our Jewish lives and has always pushed us to seek out the faith more. I cannot think of any time she made me feel like I wasn't Jewish or should consider not being Jewish. I respect the choice she made to raise us Jewish even when it was not her tradition, and I am grateful she made the choice to do so and follow through with it all these years.

Now that you know my history of being raised Jewish in an interfaith family, let me briefly explain how being interfaith has formed my traditions- don't worry, you will hear about the traditions in more detail when the holidays roll around in the blog in later posts!

Photo by: SpiffyArmbrooster

For the most part, my immediate family follows Jewish traditions and celebrates the Jewish holidays. An exception is around Christmas when we decorate our house with both Christmas and Hanukkah decorations and host our annual Glatzer Family Holiday Party. There will be a post dedicated to this event- it is one of my favorite things we do during the year, so keep your eyes peeled!

With my extended family, we celebrate holidays with both sides of the family, depending on the time of the year. The Jewish holidays are with my dad's side of the family and Christmas and Easter are with my mom's side of the family. Sometimes the holidays of one religion overlap with the other, but we make it work. For example, one year Passover and Easter overlapped. We went to my cousins' house on my mom's side to paint Easter eggs and brought along kosher for Passover snacks so we would have something to eat and still be able to celebrate Easter. Also, we would go to my grandfather's for Easter Brunch so my immediate family would be very careful about what we chose to eat, to make sure there was no bread, and we were still able to enjoy a fabulous meal with my grandfather. Other times, Christmas and Hanukkah overlapped so we either lit the Menorah before going to my cousins for Christmas Eve or just brought the Menorah with us.

Easter Dinner Without Bread

There are also certain times where both sides of my family join together,  such as the surprise 50th Birthday Party I threw for my parents, our holiday party, my brother's Bar Mitzvah and my Bat Mitzvah.

I would like to end by talking briefly about my Bat Mitzvah. This event is very important in the Jewish religion because it is when a child becomes an adult in the eyes of Judaism. It meant a lot to me that all of my extended family that could make it from both sides of my family were present at this very special event. It meant so much to me that I made sure to include my family from my mom's side in ways they would feel comfortable during the service, such as opening the Ark, in addition to the honors my dad's side of the family had, which often included Hebrew. I had my one cousin read from the New Testament a section that tied into my Torah portion for the day. It was a wonderful way to be able to connect both sides of my family and both religions.

The pride I saw in everyone's eyes that day will stay with me and always remind me of how lucky I am to have such a loving, supporting interfaith family.

Although not from my Bat Mitzvah, here is a video from my cousin's Bar Mitzvah of my grandfather, the cantor, singing " If I were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof. I decided to include this video to give you an idea of the spirit of a Bar/Bat Mitzvah for those of you who have not been to one.

Please feel free to share, in the comments, any interesting circumstances you may have within your family that help form your traditions- they don't have to be religious.

L'shana Tova Tikvatevu!

By now I'm sure I've confused most of you by the title of my blog post. No worries!

The purpose of my blog is not only to share my traditions with all of you but to help you understand holidays you don't celebrate. (I'm Jewish so for some of you this might be quite a few.) For those of you that do celebrate the holidays I talk about, I hope to hear your stories in the comments!

This first blog comes at a perfect time because this Sunday starts Rosh Hashanah. Since most people don't know about Rosh Hashanah, besides it being a day some public schools get off for, let me give a brief explanation. Rosh Hashanah is pretty much the Jewish "New Year". The word Rosh Hashanah means "head of the year." The reason it is celebrated this weekend is based purely on the Jewish calendar. This Sunday is pretty much "New Year's Eve" since it is the last day of the year, and of the month of Elul. On Monday, "New Year's Day" is celebrated as the month of Tishri begins. This Rosh Hashanah will begin the year 5776. Rosh Hashanah is one of the high holidays and is considered one of the holiest days of the year.

Photo by: My Jewish Hartford

Now that you have a basic understanding of what Rosh Hashanah is I'm going to explain the rest of the holiday through my traditions since many of them are traditional throughout Judaism.

Before I start explaining my traditions of the holiday it is very important to emphasize the other reason I chose to write about Rosh Hashanah this week, besides the proximity of this post and the holiday. I wanted to be sure to explain in my first post how traditions change over time and for me in particular Rosh Hashanah is a great example of this. It's quite interesting how one tradition becomes so ingrained in a person that it becomes part of their personality, but then this tradition can morph for a variety of reasons through the years and help build a new, more experienced attitude on the same event.

Now let's get to the fun part, celebrating! Many people on Rosh Hashanah's "New Years Eve," called Erev Rosh Hashannah, will have a big dinner with their family. My immediate family, local aunt and uncle, grandparents on my dad's side, uncle's side of the family, and any cousins that are in town either go to my Aunt Judy's house or everyone comes to ours, depending on the year. When people arrive at the dinner we greet each other with "L'shana Tova Tikvatevu" meaning "may you be inscribed in the book of life for a good year." Everyone greets each other this way throughout the holiday. The whole idea of this is after the high holiday, Yom Kippur, the following week, which is the day of repentance you are either inscribed in the book of life or not; so, you wish your friends and family to be inscribed in the book of life. This dinner is pretty much just a way to celebrate and welcome in a good year. You may have noticed in the HUB on Thursday Hillel, the Jewish club on campus, was giving out apples and honey. This symbolizes the start of a fresh, sweet new year. Apples and honey are found on every dinning table during Rosh Hashanah. Another special food during Rosh Hashanah is a circular challah, a braided bread. This challah is round to show the cycle of each year. In my family my brother and I compete to rip the knot on top of the challah off. This always leads to my uncle rolling his eyes at us. The rest of our family then eats out the center of the challah since it is so soft and leave the crust behind until the very end. The rest of dinner is normally chicken and kugel, a pasta dish.

Photo by: Ledger Online

This Rosh Hashanah I will attend services on Erev Rosh Hashanah and eat dinner with Hillel which will be very different for me since I won't be with my family. On Rosh Hashanah day I will also attend services at Hillel. The major part of my changing traditions I mentioned earlier involve services; let me explain. Growing up, we always attended services at my synagogue Kol Emet. My immediate family and aunt and uncle were members at this synagogue. I went to religious school there and grew up meeting all the kids and adults that belonged there. Eventually, my dad became president of the congregation. However, within a year politics happened between the Rabbi, the service leader, and the executive board so he stepped down along with most of the board. We then left the synagogue along with about 50 families. The next high holidays that came around we needed a place to celebrate. So my dad along with several other adults who had left began a ritual committee and started planning the service. The 50 families that left plus some had high holidays together. We had started a havarah, a group that prays together. My dad ended up leading services that year and for the next 5 years.

Rosh Hashanah became my favorite service of the year because they were held under a pavilion in a state park, near my home. It was really cool to see over a hundred people show up all dressed up and sit in lawn chairs under a pavilion to celebrate the Jewish new year. After services we would walk down to the lake and throw bread into the lake to "throw away our sins" which was very entertaining in my heels, yes I did fall once. One year during services it began to pour and thunder cracked louder than I have ever heard. It is my favorite memory of  services because it was as if G-d was talking to us. Another cool part of being outside was watching the expressions of people walking their dogs by the pavilion, some even stopped and listened. Part of the service includes blowing the shofar, a rams horn that rings in the new year. When my dad and others blew the shofars the sound echoed through the trees and across the lake; it was truly amazing. Plus the looks we got from the sound were priceless.

Recently, the havarah ended and my family returned to Kol Emet under a new Rabbi, just in time for last year's high holidays. For me this was a full circle of tradition. While it was a strange feeling coming back to Kol Emet after being away for so long and leaving the people I had grown close to over the past several years it was like coming home. For our family, it was a relieving to finally be back at a synagogue and feel as though we had a place to call home.

Although not the most entertaining traditions these are all very important as they are the beginning of the Jewish new year. I wanted to start with Rosh Hashanah to show although traditions can change but you can still be connected to the holiday or the event, no matter what you do. I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about the Jewish new year and my traditions. If you want to know anything else please feel free to ask me and/or check out this website.

As an ending note I would like to share my favorite song involving tradition to get you in the mood for future tradition stories. L'shanah Tova Tikvatenu!