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livJust drawing to the end of a nearly perfect Chanukah.
Just before Chanukah started, lovelyceb held a solstice party, which was full of people I really like, included a good number of silly games and interesting booze, and was just about my ideal social event.
First candle I lit at the synagogue Chanukah party. It was one of the most successful we've had, with a real generation mix. Lots of older people brought their young grandchildren, and lots of grandchildren brought their elderly grandparents. Also a mix of the Israeli community and the synagogue community (there are Israeli members of the religious community, and members of the Israeli cultural group who don't eschew religion, but the official organizations don't always see eye-to-eye), and basically it was lovely.
Second candlejack and I invited someone over but they weren't feeling up to socializing so it was just us two. We made extra cheesy macaroni cheese and played Scythe and had a lovely cosy evening of it.
Third candle was on Christmas Eve, so J and I went over to OSOs' andghoti_mhic_uait fed us all kinds of tasty fried and cheesy snacks and Judith told the story of the miracle of the oil. And there was plenty of time after dinner and candles for the Christians to take naps before going out to Midnight Mass.
jack and I had our now-traditional just the two of us Christmas. We roasted some rainbow potatoes which came out perfect, though the Yorkshire puddings weren't quite right. And had slightly too much food in the form of a selection of those lovely party snacks shops only sell in December. We bought each other Gloomhaven which came in an enormous parcel weighing 10 kg, and enjoyed unboxing it. We also managed a little Christmas day walk, rediscovering a tiny nature reserve, Bramblefields, not far from us.
After dark, we went over to OSOs' again. We didn't have enough appetite to actually help them eat Christmas dinner leftovers, but we did get to admire Christmas presents and exchange even more.ghoti_mhic_uait made me a pun cake for my Hebrew birthday, referring to "fork handles [four candles]" for Chanukah.
Boxing day would have been my grandmother's 100th birthday. Parents invited the whole family for lunch at theirs. One of my brothers,![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
angrysampoet, showed up unexpectedly; I'd got the impression that none of my sibs were available. But it was so lovely for my partners and their kids to be included in an explicitly family event like that; we did a fair amount of reminiscing about Granny and looking at family trees, as well as playing tag in the garden and charades based on an evil set I dug out from among our childhood games collection, Cheatwell Games' Masquerade. We stayed long enough to light 5th and sing Maoz tzur.
That left enough time in the evening forjack and I to try our first scenario in Gloomhaven, which we proceeded to lose horribly, partly because of not remembering a rule that lets you sacrifice cards rather than dying. But Boxing day traditions were duly honoured by enjoying the contents of a new box.
And then Friday was my secular birthday.ghoti_mhic_uait gave me and jack a joint present of British Museum membership, so we celebrated by visiting the How the Islamic world influenced Western art exhibition. Trains were annoying but got me and J to London eventually, where we met up with doseybat, verazea and ewt for a tasty Italian meal in a somewhat randomly chosen restaurant, Isolabella. The exhibition was great, some lovely examples of mutual influence in both directions despite the title. I particularly loved the Ottoman and Persian representations of stereotypical "westerners"!
We then went over to an old old favourite, Diwana for dinner, and one of my oldest friends,blue_mai joined us. Diwana isn't as awesome in the evening as at lunchtime, because the a la carte menu is less exciting than the buffet and the music is too loud, but the conversation was brilliant.
Saturday I read Torah. There was some amusement over whether we were counting it as the New Moon as well as Chanukah, and therefore reading three scrolls – the more conservative liturgists won the day mostly by dint of being present in the middle of Christmas whereas the more progressive faction were under-represented.cjwatson joined me for the service and the latkes-in-memory-of-Granny afterwards. And then we brought him home and roped him into our replay of Ch 1 of Gloomhaven. It works very well for a fluctuating party and the three of us, with a bit more familiarity, managed to win this time round.
In the evening,ghoti_mhic_uait and the children joined us for havdalah and 7th candle and more charades. We have got into the game since seeing Frozen 2 in the cinema the other week, and are still mostly terrible at it, but it's very companionable. Judith made a book retelling the story, which is just brilliant.
Sunday we went to lunch with my metamour's parents and siblings. That's a level of poly acceptance I never really looked for! This week has been amazing for extended families of origin treating my family of choice as family, really the best Chanukah present ever. Then I brought the polycule back to ours for 8th candle. I made lots of latkes, using borrowed olive oil as I'd managed to run out of the most ritually important ingredient, oops, and we made fair headway into the leftover Christmas cheese mountain.cjwatson managed to turn my inept attempts to sing Maoz tzur into a usable score, so yay, I get to teach my tunes in spite of not being musical.
Today I'm working from home, and the kitchen smells somewhat of frying, which is why latkes were not really part of my childhood as my mother can't deal with frying smells. Being an adult means I get to accept the cost of making my kitchen smelly once a year in order to eat tasty tasty fried food.
Just before Chanukah started, lovely
ceb held a solstice party, which was full of people I really like, included a good number of silly games and interesting booze, and was just about my ideal social event. First candle I lit at the synagogue Chanukah party. It was one of the most successful we've had, with a real generation mix. Lots of older people brought their young grandchildren, and lots of grandchildren brought their elderly grandparents. Also a mix of the Israeli community and the synagogue community (there are Israeli members of the religious community, and members of the Israeli cultural group who don't eschew religion, but the official organizations don't always see eye-to-eye), and basically it was lovely.
Second candle
jack and I invited someone over but they weren't feeling up to socializing so it was just us two. We made extra cheesy macaroni cheese and played Scythe and had a lovely cosy evening of it.Third candle was on Christmas Eve, so J and I went over to OSOs' and
ghoti_mhic_uait fed us all kinds of tasty fried and cheesy snacks and Judith told the story of the miracle of the oil. And there was plenty of time after dinner and candles for the Christians to take naps before going out to Midnight Mass.jack and I had our now-traditional just the two of us Christmas. We roasted some rainbow potatoes which came out perfect, though the Yorkshire puddings weren't quite right. And had slightly too much food in the form of a selection of those lovely party snacks shops only sell in December. We bought each other Gloomhaven which came in an enormous parcel weighing 10 kg, and enjoyed unboxing it. We also managed a little Christmas day walk, rediscovering a tiny nature reserve, Bramblefields, not far from us.After dark, we went over to OSOs' again. We didn't have enough appetite to actually help them eat Christmas dinner leftovers, but we did get to admire Christmas presents and exchange even more.
ghoti_mhic_uait made me a pun cake for my Hebrew birthday, referring to "fork handles [four candles]" for Chanukah. Boxing day would have been my grandmother's 100th birthday. Parents invited the whole family for lunch at theirs. One of my brothers,
That left enough time in the evening for
jack and I to try our first scenario in Gloomhaven, which we proceeded to lose horribly, partly because of not remembering a rule that lets you sacrifice cards rather than dying. But Boxing day traditions were duly honoured by enjoying the contents of a new box. And then Friday was my secular birthday.
ghoti_mhic_uait gave me and jack a joint present of British Museum membership, so we celebrated by visiting the How the Islamic world influenced Western art exhibition. Trains were annoying but got me and J to London eventually, where we met up with doseybat, verazea and ewt for a tasty Italian meal in a somewhat randomly chosen restaurant, Isolabella. The exhibition was great, some lovely examples of mutual influence in both directions despite the title. I particularly loved the Ottoman and Persian representations of stereotypical "westerners"! We then went over to an old old favourite, Diwana for dinner, and one of my oldest friends,
blue_mai joined us. Diwana isn't as awesome in the evening as at lunchtime, because the a la carte menu is less exciting than the buffet and the music is too loud, but the conversation was brilliant. Saturday I read Torah. There was some amusement over whether we were counting it as the New Moon as well as Chanukah, and therefore reading three scrolls – the more conservative liturgists won the day mostly by dint of being present in the middle of Christmas whereas the more progressive faction were under-represented.
cjwatson joined me for the service and the latkes-in-memory-of-Granny afterwards. And then we brought him home and roped him into our replay of Ch 1 of Gloomhaven. It works very well for a fluctuating party and the three of us, with a bit more familiarity, managed to win this time round. In the evening,
ghoti_mhic_uait and the children joined us for havdalah and 7th candle and more charades. We have got into the game since seeing Frozen 2 in the cinema the other week, and are still mostly terrible at it, but it's very companionable. Judith made a book retelling the story, which is just brilliant.Sunday we went to lunch with my metamour's parents and siblings. That's a level of poly acceptance I never really looked for! This week has been amazing for extended families of origin treating my family of choice as family, really the best Chanukah present ever. Then I brought the polycule back to ours for 8th candle. I made lots of latkes, using borrowed olive oil as I'd managed to run out of the most ritually important ingredient, oops, and we made fair headway into the leftover Christmas cheese mountain.
cjwatson managed to turn my inept attempts to sing Maoz tzur into a usable score, so yay, I get to teach my tunes in spite of not being musical. Today I'm working from home, and the kitchen smells somewhat of frying, which is why latkes were not really part of my childhood as my mother can't deal with frying smells. Being an adult means I get to accept the cost of making my kitchen smelly once a year in order to eat tasty tasty fried food.
