We flew out on Friday, so we were able to attend a birthday for their cousin Sam. The birthday party took place at an large indoor playground with all kinds of fun stuff for the kids to run around and play on. It was a lot of fun for them, and I enjoyed the Godzilla theme and cake.

Afterwards we did a bit of shopping nearby, but it was a pretty long day having just arrived the day before! It was nice to check off some shopping things off our list at the beginning of the trip though.

The following day we made our way over to New Jersey to visit with some family and continue a TV setup process that MJ started over the winter holidays. It was nice to visit them again, and the boys enjoyed playing on their power lift recliner.

Since MJ and I work while we’re there, the weekdays were pretty normal with our au pair, who travels with us, watching the kids during the day. The weather was beautiful for most of the time were were there, so throughout the trip the kids got to visit lots of interesting playgrounds and Ana also brought them to a K1 go kart place one day, which Adam hasn’t stopped talking about (Aaron isn’t big enough yet, but he enjoyed the video games!).

One evening I took the boys to the theater to see Hoppers. They’re getting a lot better at being quiet and focused during visits to the theater, which is nice because I enjoyed taking them, even if they weren’t huge fans of the movie. I was surprised at how expensive it’s become though, I clearly need to find a cheaper way to do this in the long term, but in the short term I found a pile of AMC ticket vouchers that MJ bought YEARS ago that should still be valid. With all the great movies coming out this year, we’ll have a summer full of theater adventures!

I already wrote about spending the next Saturday at CPOSC. On the way home we took the scenic route down 340 and the boys enjoyed seeing all the horses and Amish buggies, counted farms along the way, they stopped when they got to 100. We haven’t properly done Lancaster with them, so maybe that’s an adventure we’ll embark on over the summer. On the way home we needed some dinner, so we stopped in King of Prussia and went back to the Netflix House and had a surprisingly chill dinner at NetFlix Bites.

On Wednesday I took the day off from work to prepare for a Passover Seder. I’m glad I did. Even though I wasn’t cooking the meal, I did have to pick up the catered food, and I made Charoset for the first time! Making Charoset is actually pretty easy, I looked at a few recipes and then settled on a version of My FAVORITE Passover Charoset where I simplified it spice-wise, swapped out the walnuts for almonds, and wine for grape juice, so the recipe ended up being:

• 1/2 granny smith apple
• 1 gala apple
• 3/8 cup sliced almonds
• 3/4 Tablespoons honey
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 Tablespoons grape juice

For chopping the apples I pulled out the food processor that I got a couple years ago for latkes.

I know it’s dead simple and all you do is mix everything together, but I’m no chef, so anything is a win. I think I will double the recipe next year so we end up with leftovers.

Then it was time to prep the dishes! I decided to pull out nice china that belonged to MJ’s grandparents, a set of glasses that my father-in-law explained came from a trip to Italy, and took some polish wipes to the silver utensils, also inherited from MJ’s grandparents. We didn’t have a Seder plate in Philly, but I solved that the week before with a drive down to Jerusalem Israeli Gift Shop. The women who own the shop were incredibly helpful, and I left with a Seder plate, a matzoh plate, a matzoh cover, and a couple bottles of wine. The last bit of shopping was picking up some endives from Acme. Finally, I had to roast the lamb shank bone that we picked up from House of Kosher, along with the hard boiled egg, both for the Seder plate.

It was a lot to do for a day when I’m “not cooking”. All worth it though, things came together really nicely and the boys enjoyed having grandpa come over instead of just doing a Seder with our immediate family in California.

I wanted to make sure I slowed down to enjoy our time too, so we didn’t really focus on home improvement projects. However, a built-in microwave repair was thrust upon us a couple days before we left. I wasn’t a microwave person until I had kids, and now we use it all the time. The switch inside the door had stopped working properly, so it could no longer reliably sense when the door was open or closed, which meant sometimes it would work. Thankfully, an appliance repair company was able to come out the next day and get it fixed. I still have mixed feelings about repairing it verses replacing it for how much we paid, but I kept an otherwise perfectly fine appliance out of a landfill, and saved us all the stress of shopping and coordinating a mounted installation, so it was probably the right move.

And I wasn’t completely idle. I realized one of the ways I want to enjoy our home there is by using our deck. We’re coming up on our 9th year with the townhouse, and we’ve never had deck furniture! Sometimes I’ll haul a folding table out there for a “picnic” or the boys will use it to run around, but effectively it wasn’t a space we could really enjoy. To change this I did a minimal amount of searching and found a nice patio couch and coffee table set that I could pick up at the Home Depot right away, and got that assembled one evening. Hooray!

Coincidentally, a neighbor also posted on the Facebook group for the development that she was looking to get rid of her patio table and six chairs. It’s a nice set, so I reached out and arranged a pick-up time. That’s how MJ and I ended up hauling a table over a deck railing and into our house the night before we left Philly, hah! It’s on the larger side, but I think I found an orientation that will work for us on the deck. I’ll take some better pictures when everything is set up over the summer.

Super Mario Galaxy came out while we were in town, we planned on having all of us go, but Aaron fell ill with a stomach bug that slowly made its way through our household, and so I just took Adam. It was a fun movie, and it turns out the whole family will get an opportunity to see it together at the end of this week when we go to our local single-screen theater to see it with their elementary school.

As the visit wound down, we managed to get lunch with cousin Lauren and her husband and new baby. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of them over the summer, as they’re only about 40 minutes away now and they have pools at their development. And what do our kids love? Pools. And we got to see Aunt Irina and cousin Sammy one last time before we left, we picked up some takeout sushi and had a nice time in her recently renovated back yard, and then down in the playroom basement where I got to play with Lego. Oh, and the kids played with Lego too. I also managed to successfully make matzoh brie on the Saturday before we left, even if MJ and I were the only ones who enjoyed it.

In all, it was a really nice visit that didn’t end up feeling like too much, in spite of how much we packed into it. The kids had plenty of down time to play video games, and I did too. I finished reading a book while we were there, and definitely got some springtime enjoyment out of that new couch in the back, from nighttime playing on my Switch to having breakfast outside with the boys. We also had a deck umbrella delivered which will fit nicely into the hole in our new table, we’ll just need to get a small umbrella base when we get into town so that it stays put during our visit (we’ll bring it inside between visits).

But first, the boys helped me make the Hamantaschen at home!

This year we used cherry pie filling, home made plum jam (from our tree!), and Nutella for a few, upon Aaron’s request.

The boys had a lot of fun at the carnival at the synagogue. They dressed up in their Halloween costumes from October to join all the other kids (and some adults) in the costume parade and songs before the carnival. Then there were jugglers, a bouncy house, lots of games, and they both even agreed to eat hot dogs for lunch there. And they really loved adding up all their prize tickets at the end to pick out some prizes.

The following weekend I was at SCALE, but MJ brought Aaron to his first t-ball game, and I had the pleasure of joining them the following weekend. Watching a bunch of 4-5 year olds scattered around a baseball diamond trying to do something resembling a baseball game is absolutely adorable. They’re not great at hitting, or catching, or throwing, or knowing much about game mechanics at all, but they’re all having a lot of fun outdoors with some new friends. At this second game we also had our first au pair and her husband join us to watch him play, and go out for lunch afterwards.

I am practicing catch with Aaron in the evenings when we have time and the weather cooperates (it’s been HOT!), I even picked up my own baseball glove. He’s also still got practice with his team on Monday evenings too. Lots of baseball!

Getting into the routine of baseball and religious school over the weekend will take some getting used to. I’m usually scouring email and websites for the latest activities at our local parks and museums to keep us busy. On the one hand, it’s nice to not have to do that, but on the other, will I miss our constant adventures? We’ll see!

The rest of our weekends have been taken up by obligatory errands and chores, including our continuing project to clear out and reorganize the garage while the boys ride their bikes outside.

Aaron and I have also been doing a lot of Lego together, most recently we’re working our way through a set with four Star Wars astromech droids wearing costumes. The boys have also started playing video games together a bit more, with Adam showing Aaron how to play the games, which is super cute. They’ve even brought me in to play sometimes, especially when they’re playing on Realms and the two of them join on the PS5 and I can hop on with my Switch (how many copies of Minecraft across devices are we going to end up owning?).

F1 season began too, and though we’ve never watched it before, Adam asked if we could this year. Sure! That means putting on some practices here and there, and then watching the 30 minute race recaps each week. It’s been a lot of fun. They have so many questions about cars that I don’t know how to answer, so we’re learning a lot too.

So as much as I love adventures, bonding with them over things we can do at home from the couch is really nice too, and gets me at least a little of the rest I need over the weekend.

This week I’m packing for us to head to Philadelphia for a couple weeks. We’re aiming to attend a cousin’s birthday party, go to an open source conference, and Passover host a Seder at our house with as many family members as we can convince to come by. Packing has me a little overwhelmed, as always, but I’m sure we’ll have a nice time once I can settle in.

Our Saturdays will also soon be spoken for, as Aaron started T-Ball practice at the beginning of February. Monday evening they have practice, and Saturday they play a game. In preparation for all of this, we also had to go shopping. Aaron is now equipped with cleats, a bat, a batting helmet, and a glove, and it’s been a lot of fun to do with him. Adam is less enthusiastic since he comes along to practice with us, but we’ll find another activity for him to do soon.

Zara the cat has also really been enjoying post-cone life as her wounds remain healed and the fur slowly begins to grow back at the end of her tail. Now we just need to stop her from trying to run outside for an adventure every time we open the door.

In mid-February the boys had a week off from school for “ski week” where we did not ski. In fact, the storms were so bad that they advised no one to head to the mountains to ski due to dangerous conditions, including a deadly avalanche. Besides, we don’t ski, so instead we invited my mother to visit! The weather meant that for the second time here, my mother had to spend time in uncharacteristically soggy conditions, but we made it work. The first day she was here was forecast for the nicest, so we took the boys out to the Oakland Zoo and while cloudy, the rain was kept at bay.

On Sunday morning it was over to the Chabot Space & Science Center where we have a membership. The boys have gotten a lot better at sitting through planetarium shows, and that was definitely a highlight of our visit. The boys also had a lot of fun upstairs doing some of the more interactive exhibits. It was nice getting early before the rain picked up and it got busy, and it meant we could leave midday and still have time to go out to lunch elsewhere.

I took off from work for the next couple of days to spend with my mother and the boys, and those were a bit less exciting and gave us all time to relax and spend time together. On Tuesday we went to an indoor play area and then we off to swim class where Aaron graduated to the next level! It was nice to have my mother there for that, he was so proud to show off his graduation ribbon and the card he received for advancing. On Wednesday morning we got the sad news that one of her cats had fallen gravely ill, so that was quite the downer to conclude the visit with as I took her to the airport. Still, it was a nice visit overall, I’m glad she was able to get some nice time with the boys.

Work has been going well, and after a cooped up January, I made my way down to the IBM Silicon Valley Lab for a day to catch up with a colleague and attend a on-site division all hands. That same week I went up to San Francisco to meet up with a university student I met through an open source webinar back in December, which was a lot of fun. It reminded me how lucky I am to be in a role that gives me the opportunity to work with students whose curiosity and brains are always inspiring. Don’t listen to the “get off my lawn” types, our future is in good hands with the “kids these days”.

The day I was in San Francisco I met up with MJ in the evening to go to The Exploratorium for an after-party for the NANOG conference he was attending and was taking place locally. It wasn’t quite a date night, since it was a work event for him and I wandered off to explore exhibits on my own while he talked shop, but it was still nice for the two of us to go out as adults without the kids for a bit, and we did have some nice vintage streetcar rides together before heading home for the night. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the opportunity to catch up on time for a date night over Valentine’s Day either, since that’s when my mother was visiting, and MJ was fighting off food poisoning for several days anyway. I hope we can do something nice together soon.

In all, I’d say February was a nice on-ramp to the coming months that look to be quite busy. March begins and ends with travel for me, and the spring and summer are always full of activities.

Why?

I’m still an atheist.

Back in 2012 when this journey was quite new I wrote about this: Joining a synagogue.

For everything except the question of a deity, I’ve gone quite far down the path to Judaism. My first stop was doing an Introduction to Judaism class before we got married by a rabbi. I’ve since read several books to expand my knowledge about Judaism. I did docent training at the synagogue we belonged to in San Francisco to learn all about the history of that temple and its place in the Reform movement. Today our children are being raised Jewish, we observe all the major Jewish holidays, and some of the minor ones that we found a connection to (Tu B’Shvat is coming up!). We observe Shabbat weekly, don’t eat pork, and have joined our local synagogue here in the east bay where they will start religious school soon. I’ve also started dabbling in learning Hebrew. In spite of not being much of a cook, I learned how to make challah, latkes, and hamantaschen. It turns out that I’ve always had a fondness for several Jewish food staples. When I travel, I visit Jewish landmarks and museums, like the synagogue I visited in Mumbai or searching for the menorah at Fonthill Castle. When my life was more conducive to it, I would spend part of Shabbat reading Torah, and a few years ago I followed along to reach every weekly Torah portion.

Most importantly, I’ve embraced the teachings and living a Jewish life for myself. I enjoy pausing to reflect during the holidays. I appreciate that rituals. I found that my own drive to fight injustice and teach others have always been quite aligned with Judaism. I enjoy studying and asking questions. It’s all very important to me.

But I’m a very literal and analytical person. While rituals and lessons from Torah can help guide and shape my life because I recognize wisdom and appreciate cycles, I don’t have belief in their literal truth, or a deity.

When I was having infrequent meetings with our rabbi in San Francisco, he loaned me the book For Those Who Can’t Believe: Overcoming the Obstacles to Faith, which became part of our permanent collection when he passed away before I could see him again. It didn’t get me where I need to be though. I’ve spent years since continuing to learn and live as a Jewish family, but deep down worrying that this would be what always prevents me from converting.

Now that we’ve joined a synagogue again and plan on going more with the boys, I want to revisit this. Is there a path here for me? Or is my role in our family and community something different?

The menorah we searched for, and found, on a ceiling in a hallway at Fonthill Castle

I also had the unfortunate situation of battling a sinus infection while figuring out the answers to all these questions. I always forget how painful those are, and how debilitating the sinus headaches can be. My stomach also didn’t respond to the antibiotics very well this time. Oof. When I say this was a doozy of a holiday season, I hope you get where I’m coming from. We figured it out though!

First: Prep! I’ve already written that we put up lights and decorations, and set up the model trail that we set up for Hanukkah. I realize that Christmas holiday glitter has infiltrated our Hanukkah quite a bit with all of this, but I love holiday glitter and this is just how it’s going to be in our house. Besides, Christmas got the glitter from solstice celebrations. It’s fair all game.

1st Night

To kick off Hanukkah we invited Rebeca over to celebrate with us, and so she could be around for the boys opening the present from her.

I also sent MJ and the boys out earlier in the day to hunt for some jelly doughnuts so we could enjoy a sufganiyot-ish treat this first evening.

2nd Night

Dreidels, gelt, and Hanukkah art!

A latke and an menorah, by Aaron

The boys were relatively self-sufficient with their playing with the dreidels this year, which was fun, aside from the inevitable fights that broke out over strategic dropping rather than spinning of the dreidel to get the desired outcome, hah! They both got the hang of spinning it though.

3rd Night

Around 3:30 in the afternoon, a collision occurred on Interstate 580 near our house that caused a car to be inexplicably vaulted from the flat bed of a tow truck to the BART train tracks that reside in the middle of the highway. It’s incredibly bizarre, I hope details are released at some point as to what they believe happened because it would be fascinating to know how it was even possible (update). The one thing we do know is that it it caused a traffic NIGHTMARE all evening. Adam was scheduled to meet with the leads of a program he’s been enrolled in to celebrate his graduation, and they were a full 90 minutes late – for a 90 minute visit. Still, they made it and we got to celebrate!

Alas, a family friend who was scheduled to come by did rethink her visit into that traffic nightmare. That meant that the latkes I was preparing (recipe here) for her visit had one fewer person to feed, and it was a bit of an anticlimactic conclusion to my latke preparation. Aaron and I really enjoyed them though! And MJ was able to enjoy some leftovers before we left for Philly.

That evening the boys had a lot of fun listening to the news helicopters fly overhead, and following the news about the car on the BART tracks, including watching a live broadcast as the rescue truck with a crane lifted the car off the tracks.

I enjoyed my third night of Hanukkah beer with my latkes and apple sauce.

4th Night

Packing for our trip, and managing a chaotic week that included work, taking the cat to two different specialists, and an emergency dermatologist appointment for Aaron who has a knee wound that’s taking longer than expected to heal. We did presents and lights and it was lovely, but I didn’t take pictures because the evening was a lot.

5th Night

On to Philadelphia! My solution to in-flight Hanukkah was giving the boys a couple gifts on the plane that they could use on the plane. So they each got to enjoy a new game for the Nintendo Switch. Aaron got a Bluey game and Adam got a Cars game that he’d been eyeing at a game shop in Hayward, that MJ had the foresight to pick up as a Hanukkah gift.

When we finally got to the townhouse in Philly, we lit the candles for the fifth night and munched on our quick dinner picked up from Wawa. Then it was straight to bed!

6th Night

I phoned it in with present wrapping this night because while I had presents available to give the boys, I had a busy day at work and zero time to wrap presents. After going out for dinner, we lit the candles and the boys got to open the presents I had tossed into a gift bag with some tissue paper on top. Voila! Everyone was happy.

7th Night

Things were a bit more together today, but it helped that it was a weekend. Lights were lit, and Aaron got his favorite present of the holiday: a really simple ice cream maker. He’s been talking about it for over a month, and has kept talking about it, so he really seems to be enjoying it.

8th Night

We spent the day downtown, and then joined grandpa, his aunt Irina, and cousin Sammy for lighting the candles the final night. With our menorahs full of candles, it was great to have family over, and we all had an enjoyable evening.

And thus concludes Hanukkah for the year! Now that I’ve done the split coast thing once, I think I’m in a much better position to continue it when the need next arises, but with it landing in early December in 2026, this probably won’t be that year. Thank goodness.

This year for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we also finally got to attend services in-person! With chaotic young kids, and then last year with some colds sweeping through the house, we were glad to finally take advantage of this opportunity. We started small, by just attending the afternoon family services for both holidays, but it was nice to be back in-person for the holidays, and to start meeting people. We’ve also started on our path to get the boys to weekly religious school there, which we’re all looking forward to.

We also enjoyed apples and honey around Rosh Hashanah, and Aaron helped me make a round challah, which actually came out quite lovely this year!

Celebrations continued when I returned from a work trip as we went over to the synagogue for a young children event for Sukkot. They had a big sukkah set up, and in collaboration with PJ library had a bunch of activities arranged, from a story time to crafts and coloring, followed by lunch.

Kids also got to wave the lulav and etrog with our Rabbi, which Aaron took part in.

The kids were pretty excited about Sukkot and are really interested in building our own sukkah. Timing of my work travel this year made it impossible, but maybe we’ll see what we can do next year.

And unrelated to the holidays but related to family, MJ’s Uncle Dick and his wife were visiting San Francisco recently while on a cruise. Squeezed right between my work trip and one MJ had to leave for, we met them for a lovely dinner on the Embarcadero. I had only met MJ’s uncle once, and he’d never met the boys, so it was nice to get together, even if the boys were on the tired side and were mostly glued to TV on their phones.

Afterwards, we dropped them back at the cruise terminal where the boys were jealous that they got to sleep on a boat, but they did perk up a bit post-meal and were able to be a little social. I’m glad we were able to conclude the evening on that note.

After we went on the Niles Canyon Railway train two days I took off from work to spend some time with the kids while our au pair was out of town, and recover a bit from everything going on. On Monday I had the morning solo with Adam, since he had a day off from school and Aaron was at preschool. Our first activity together was putting up some Halloween lights and decorations outside. Then we went inside to make a custom t-shirt, which Adam had been asking to do for months. His subject? A BART train that we designed from a photo! On Tuesday I had Aaron for the morning while Adam was in school, and we tried out a new breakfast restaurant in town, The Breakfast Club. Everything about it was exceptional and we both ate too much.

On Saturday we had more trains! We went up to the Western Railway Museum for their Pumpkin Patch Festival about 90 minutes northeast of us. Gaby came along with us for this one, and we stopped to pick up burgers about 20 minutes from the museum, and so we enjoyed a burger picnic upon arrival, which worked out really nicely.

When we finished lunch, the boys played in the signal garden! They have a series of old railway signal crossing signs that they have hooked up to buttons that can be triggered with a press. We saw it the last time we visited the museum, but didn’t get the opportunity then to visit.

From there, it was onto the Key System tram that whisked us off to the Pumpkin Patch.

The pumpkin patch activities were supported largely by the local Rotary Club and they put on a really enjoyable time. There was a HUGE hay fort, which the boys were happy to explore on their own at first, but swiftly took my hand and made me run through with them.

There was a bouncy house! And a zipline for kids!

They also had a little hay ride that took us past a bunch of scarecrows made by local groups. On the way out we visited the pumpkins for sale, but we went with some of the smaller gourds so it was easier to bring them back on the tram, and ultimately home, with us.

It was a wonderful experience. As the afternoon wound down we got on one the last trams leaving the pumpkin patch before making the long drive home, during which both boys fell asleep.

On Sunday we finally found a way to celebrate Sukkot. The synagogue in San Francisco that we used to attend had a Sukkah in Colma that they’d set up, so we made the drive across the bay to celebrate with them. Unfortunately, the rabbi couldn’t make it and there were only a handful of people there, but we had some nice discussions and at least the boys got to see the sukkah and hear the group recite some prayers. We went from there to the city where we had lunch at Fogo de Chao, yum.

The late afternoon was spent just hanging around at home before making mini pizzas for dinner together, and then I was off to the airport! In my first work trip in months, I was off to Las Vegas for IBM TechXchange.

Thankfully, we didn’t have grand plans for my birthday, and instead I was simply welcomed with a beautifully themed cake as we celebrated with just the immediate family and our former au pair who dropped by with flowers. And no candles, because no one wants someone with a cold blowing on a cake, regardless of the infection status of everyone else.

My birthday present was quite the treat though, tickets to Niles Canyon Railway on their steam train! For two weeks in the future, which was good, because there was no way we were going out on my birthday.

On Tuesday of that week was the culmination of a TON of work: IBM Z Day. I wasn’t a track lead this year, but I put together the developer journey and consulted on several sessions, and I gave a talk in the Academic Symposium with Matt Germonprez of the CHAOSS project about the importance of open source software. I think the session went well, and thankfully I was feeling well enough for it.

On Wednesday night Rosh Hashanah began! I made honey cake with the boys, but unfortunately our bread maker broke and the new one didn’t arrive until Thursday so we couldn’t make round challah before the holiday. We participated in evening services virtually after the boys went to bed, and the next morning I took the boys out to the park to run around for a bit before morning services at 10:30AM, which we also joined virtually. The bread maker also arrived, and while strictly not appropriate to bake challah on Rosh Hashanah, we did anyway. A round challah! Which came out pretty decently. Plus, being able to bake the round challah together helped get over some of the disappointment of missing the fancy challah baking event the weekend before.

In the late afternoon, we cut up a bunch of fruit and figured out how to extract the seeds from a pomegranate to enjoy some fruit and honey.

Happy New Year! We’d like to finally attend services in-person again next year, but things just didn’t come together for it this year, especially with everyone being so sick in the days leading up to it.

If I’m honest, it was a lot for one week. I really wish we hadn’t gotten sick, but with little ones in school it’s tricky to avoid it, as we’d also discover two weeks later when we all got sick again. Oof!

A huge part of crafting a successful holiday was that I took a week off from work following Thanksgiving. In addition to all the boring house stuff I did, I was able to prepare for Hanukkah. The first thing of note is that I did more decorating than I have in years past. Part of that was due to the boys getting old enough to enjoy decorating and being festive for the holidays, so I had enthusiastic helpers and didn’t feel like I’m just doing it all for myself.

While I had a babysitter watching the boys I put up some blue and white lights outside, and then the boys helped me put more lights up on the banister on the stairway. We found some window decals at CVS and the boys also spent a little time doing Hanukkah coloring and other art that we put on the walls.

I love model trains, and so do the boys, so each year I set up a “Hanukkah train” and in the middle of the loop we put all the presents. One evening I set up the table with a blue table cloth and the boys and I assembled the Union Pacific train I bought a few years ago for this purpose. I probably set it all up too early because the presents were a tremendous source of temptation and frustration for the boys as we led up to Hanukkah, but I was trying to build up the excitement!

Speaking of presents, I ended up making a document to track what presents the boys were getting for Hanukkah and where they were in the process (ordered, shipped, boxed, wrapped) so I wouldn’t lose track, and to make sure we had enough presents of similar value and excitement for both Adam and Aaron each night. I was also thrilled to find some beautiful Hanukkah wrapping paper at TJ Maxx (along with a Hanukkah cats pillow and blanket), so I didn’t have to just rely upon generic winter-themed wrapping paper. Hanukkah penguins! Hanukkah cookies! Menorahs!

The boys had fun with all the present unwrapping, at ages 3 and nearly 5, it was the first year both of them could really enjoy it properly. Reflecting upon my experience growing up with Christmas, it was fun to do 8 nights of presents. Each night and the following day they focus on one or two gifts they got instead of the excitement exploding in just one morning. It’s a really nice tradition.

We also managed to get some Hanukkah Gelt this year, which I also found at CVS and the boys eagerly devoured each night. Maybe next year we’ll be able to properly play with the dreidel for some instead of just launching it across the room, hah!

One day I ventured out to pick up some jelly doughnuts, which I hope were a reasonable enough stand-in for proper sufganiyah. But no homemade latkes this year. I enjoyed eating them the one year I managed to make them, but the work that goes into them was beyond my ability this year. Maybe I’ll try again if I get some little machine that shreds the potato and onion instead of having to do it manually.

As beautiful as the holiday was and the joy we all gained from it, there was the shadow of the war in Israel looming over it all, and a rise in anti-semitism, this time coming from the left side of the political spectrum. A menorah was vandalized in Oakland, and reports of violence have popped up across the country. Having not been born Jewish, learning most of I know about Judaism in the past 12 years or so, I guess I didn’t quite understand how much anti-Jewish sentiment can simmer for decades before boiling over. I’ve shared before that when MJ and I got married, I didn’t give another thought to raising a Jewish family. We live in a modern society! Jewish people are Americans! Everything is fine! These days I do worry about the world we’re leaving for our boys, and only hope that things calm down and they can continue to thrive in a safe place that’s full of opportunity for people of all faiths.

So it was extra special to see that the menorah in Castro Valley, which in years past had been nearly hidden in a small park down the boulevard, was in the center of town this year. Our local Chabad organization also did a whole event on the 5th night there with a lot of festivities (I didn’t know it was happening, otherwise we would have gone!).

And I took my time to admire the big menorah that graces Union Square in San Francisco when we made our way to the city over the weekend.

Happy holidays, my friends. Whatever you celebrate, I hope you have an enjoyable time and a happy new year.

In preparation for Hanukkah, I once again got our Hanukkah train set up and presents wrapped, so Adam could grab them each night.

I did a refresh on our Hanukkah garland and replaced the lights, so our stairway display was fluffy and fresh-looking this year! The punch card wreath on my office door also got a little bit of Hanukkah flair.

We enjoyed a Hanukkah dinner on the third night, once again picking up our brisket, latkes, veggies, challah, and sufganiyot (donuts!) from Wise Sons in San Francisco. Even with everything pre-cooked, it does take work to heat up and serve everything with the little ones running around, but it was still a great short-cut, and I didn’t have to worry about anything coming out badly!

With Adam being nearly three years old, it was also nice to really observe the holiday with him. He was thrilled about getting to light candles each night, and the presents were a nice touch too. He even helped his dad with lighting his train menorah candles.

Night seven fell on Saturday, and I somehow felt inspired to try and make latkes. MJ mixed the dry ingredients and wrangled the kids while I shredded potatoes and onions with a hand shredder. Once the kids went to bed we got to frying, and it turned out pretty well! As someone who “doesn’t cook” I was quite pleased, and it gave us fresh latkes to enjoy with the leftover brisket and veggies.

Finally, I got a Hanukkah-themed beer box! It meant having a beer each night, which was probably a bit much, so I’m happy to dry out this week, but it was fun as a novelty this year.

It was a fun year for Hanukkah, but also gave me a taste of how the holidays are going to be moving forward. Both of our kids have birthdays this time of year, so I’ve also been planning birthdays! It’s definitely a very busy time of year, with lots of treats.