How I Saved Hanukkah (8 page)

About an hour before the party my dad came shuffling out of his bedroom with droopy shoulders and a saggy face. But when he saw our art taped up on the windows, he lit up like a menorah.

*    *    *

People started coming around 4:30. I heard our neighbor Doreen say that she had a hard time convincing her son Sean that it was okay to come. He didn’t think they should because it wasn’t their holiday.

Then Lucy and her entire family, even Grandma, were at the door. Lucy and I were both wearing the outfits my mom had given us. Hers looked just as goofy on her as mine did on me.

Lucy had brought the blue-and-white decoration that she’d made at school the day we had that sub. I taped her sky with animal clouds up on the window with my menorah art and Ned’s dreidel and latke squiggles.

I heard Lucy’s mom telling my dad that they had all watched his sextuplet Christmas show in their hotel room in Texas, and that they’d loved it. Lucy’s mom
asked all the usual questions about how the parents cope with so many toddlers. And my dad gave his usual answers about how they do their best and find joy where they can.

Everyone just ran around for a while. Ned’s friends were especially nutso—but not Ned. He spent the entire Hanukkah party either riding on my dad’s shoulders or practically Velcroed to his leg.

We lit the full menorah. My dad turned out the lights and everybody got quiet because it was so pretty. Joe from the deli said the blessing of the Hanukkah candles in Hebrew.

Then everyone who knew the words sang “Oh Hanukkah,” and it sounded great. There was me and my mom and my dad with his big voice, and Ned sort of sang, and Lucy and Joe and Joe’s Wife, whose name turned out to be Rose. But boy, was I surprised when I noticed Lucy’s sister Yaz singing along too! Lucy must have taught it to her that very day.

Next my mom asked me if I would like to tell the story of Hanukkah to everyone—“Marla’s version,” she said—and I did.

“Long ago and far away,” I began, “a king named Antiochus declared it a crime to be Jewish. It was against the law to pray to just one God. Lots of Jewish people started bowing and praying to the king’s Greek gods and acting just like everyone else.

“But some Jews disobeyed the king and secretly kept to their old ways and beliefs. The king hated that. He sent some soldiers to put up an idol in the Temple and make a Jew sacrifice a pig to it. A few Jews revolted and fought the soldiers.

“Then the king was really mad, so he sent more soldiers. A man named Mattathias led his sons and a small band of Jews to live in caves in the hills, where he taught them to fight. After a year Mattathias died and his son Judah took over. His nickname was Maccabee, and the whole band of warrior Jews was soon called the Maccabees. They were way outnumbered by the bigger and bigger armies that the king sent to kill them, but the Maccabees kept winning.

“The king was furious. For the last battle he sent fighting elephants and his very best soldiers. But the Maccabees fought so fiercely that, against all odds, the king’s soldiers retreated and the war was over.

“The Maccabees went home to their village to celebrate and found that their Temple had been destroyed.”

“Bummer,” said Yaz.

I told everyone about the rebuilding of the Temple and the miracle of the oil lasting eight nights and that’s why we light candles for eight nights.

Then I said that before vacation my teacher had made me make a blue-and-white candle when all the rest of the class was making red-and-green ones.

“None of my other teachers before had ever singled me out as the only Jewish kid in class. But the story of Hanukkah makes me think Mrs. Guyer was sort of right—I shouldn’t have to make red-and-green decorations all the time just because everyone else is. I am me—blue and white.”

“Bravo!” my dad yelled, and everyone clapped and cheered for me. My mom looked teary.

“I leave town for a few days,” my dad said, “and my kid turns the whole family into characters in a warm-fuzzy Hanukkah segment.”

“Are we as heartwarming as the sextuplets in Santa hats?” I asked.

“You have a promising future in television,” my dad said, winking.

My mom walked by just then and said, “God forbid!”

Later almost everyone danced! My mom led the dancers in a chain, snaking through the kitchen and living room with the hora tape at full volume. And we played dreidel with kids calling out the letters so loud that the grown-ups all left the room.

Sean, the neighbor kid who hadn’t wanted to come in the first place, told me he didn’t want a latke. Then he tried one when everyone else did. “It’s just hash browns!” he said, and had seconds.

Everyone brought a grab-bag gift for a kid. My mom had told them that the gifts were to be cheap. A token. But some people didn’t listen and I got one of the gifts those people brought. Forty-eight Magic Markers and two huge pads of paper. When no one was looking, I traded it with Lucy for the jigsaw puzzle she’d gotten. Lucy promised to draw me a picture of my Hanukkah party, using all forty-eight colors.

I was walking Lucy and her family to the door when Yaz turned to me and said, “This was fun. I can’t believe we all fell for your pathetic story about how dreary Hanukkah is!”

“Well, it wasn’t always like this,” I laughed.

*    *    *

When everyone was gone but us, and my mom was done complaining about the mess, and sleeping Ned had been peeled off Dad’s shoulder and put to bed, my parents came into my room.

“Mom tells me this was all your doing,” my dad said. “The party, the hora, everything . . . . So you’re probably going to do all the dishes and cleaning up yourself too, right?”

My mom rolled her eyes at him, so he said, “Just kidding.”

Mom gave me a hug, saying, “You are really something else, Miss Marla. I’m very lucky to have a daughter like you . . . even if you did turn me into my old Auntie Eva.” She hugged me again and she didn’t let go for a long, long time.

*    *    *

Hanukkah was over.

The next morning my mom said, “Now, does anybody want to run out and get some Christmas lights and ornaments for next year? This is the perfect time for sales.”

“I do!” Ned said. “Can we
really
?”

“It’s up to Marla,” said Mom.

I knew it was a test, but I also knew it was my
only chance to have a tree, ornaments, colored lights . . . . I tried to picture our house all decorated like Lucy’s. Our white-on-white living room with cotton clouds on the mantel, red candles, and stockings? Even in my mind it didn’t fit right.

So it didn’t take me
that
long to say, “Nah, we’re Jewish.”

My mom gave me the thumbs-up sign, but Ned socked me. He has a lot to learn. Really.

Amy Goldman Koss
is also the author of
The Trouble with Zinny Weston, The Ashwater Experiment
, and
The Girls
(all Dial). She was inspired to write
How I Saved Hanukkah
when her daughter was the only kid in her class given Hanukkah colors to work with on an art project. Like Marla’s mother, Amy Koss has two children (a girl and a boy) and her husband works in television. However, her house is not blindingly white, and she almost never scrapes her knuckles when making latkes.

Ms. Koss lives in Glendale, California, with her family and many, many pets.

Diane deGroat
has illustrated many middle-grade novels. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

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