Pen-Elayne on the Web

"A Great Miracle Happened There"

Tonight begins the minor festival of Chanukah, one which never interested me overmuch for a number of reasons:

All the players in the Chanukah story are male. No sense of identification for me.

The story climaxes with a battle scene, and fighting usually bores me. (I figure that's when I'm going to take my bathroom break during this.)

It's essentially about oil. I mean, really.

The way it was presented as I was growing up was as "the Jewish alternative to Christmas" because the commemmoration of both happened to fall during the same time of the year. I always thought that was pretty cheap and trivial.

Even so, old habits die hard, and being essentially a creature of ritual I kinda like lighting the candles, provided I can find free ones from the Lubavitchers on the streets in the Penn Station area (which I haven't this year, as my boss has been in all week and I've not been able to go out during lunchtime to look for 'em) and I actually get home by sundown (impossible this year as Chanukah falls late in the calendar and I think the sun sets tonight before I even get out of work)...