conuly

And also to practice identifying triangles and words that start with the letter S, of course. She was very excited to tell me it's a "Dooiss" star, and I corrected her with the phrase "Star of David" - yes, Ana, David like David in your class, but not exactly.

It's interesting how these things stick with you. She swung her star a bit, Evangeline, and said "Hanukkah, Hanukkah", so I pulled her on my lap on the rocking chair and sang "Oh Hanukkah" with her, which we sang *every* year during winter when I was in Brooklyn. (We had more Jewish students in my class than I think either Ana or Evangeline does now, so it made more sense, but whatever.) And when we moved to Staten Island, the schools here didn't do that, they had other songs they did. So it's been a good 16, 17 years since I've sung or heard this song - but I was still word perfect.

Clicky!

Of course, when Evangeline was a baby I used to entertain myself by going "Oh, baby, baby, baby, I made her out of clay, and when I'm good and ready, with baby I shall play", which... didn't make sense even then, but it's a catchy melody to be sure. When I was a kid, they'd hand out these little plastic dreidles for us at the Holiday Party (or around Hanukkah if it was very early in the month, and then our party would be at the end of the month), and those chocolate coins, gelt. And now they sell those chocolate coins with Santa on them, presumably for Christmas, which just strikes me as either the ultimate in cross-cultural sharing or WRONG WRONG WRONG VERY WRONG. Not sure which.