Remembering the little family miracles of Hanukkah and Christmas Eve

When I was a child and Christmas Eve came on one of the nights of Hanukkah, Aunt Helen and Uncle Ralph came to our house and gave each of the children a five-dollar bill. They actually did this every Hanukkah but somehow it was more fun on Christmas Eve.

Fiftysome years ago, this was actually serious cash for a ten-year-old.

“What, you got cash?” my brother exclaimed on his recent visit when I was recalling the story.

He does not remember getting any money. When I suggested maybe he was too young, he demanded to know who had his money. Why didn’t they save it for him? After all these years he could have amassed a small fortune. Didn’t my parents believe in piggy banks?

On the particular night in my memory, we were all sitting in front of the fireplace, which never had a fire going because my mother was afraid it would burn the house down, but she did carefully light the holiday candles in a menorah on the mantle warning us to step back in case one of the candles fell over and set the house on fire. This, of course, never happened, given the holiday is about miracles.

I would politely thank Uncle Ralph as he handed me the money, pretending to be surprised even though he did it every year. I did wonder if he would up the ante as we got older but now that I think of it I really looked forward to that crisp five-dollar bill. It always looked freshly done like the hairdresser of money had spiffed it up for our special occasion. My brother says he would have been fine with old wrinkled bills but I think that’s his deprivation talking. He never had the joy of the new bill in his little hands.

Now the interesting thing about our Hanukkah celebration was that there were stockings hung from the mantle piece holding the menorah. Mom told us that she hung stockings in my very religious Grandma Sarah’s apartment in the Bronx. The story went that, since the stocking tradition did not have a religious connection to Christmas, but rather, or so my grandmother thought, a fun children’s treat, it was allowed.

There was no fireplace in grandma’s apartment so I think the stockings were hung from the wide window sill in the kitchen. Treats were at a minimum for an emigrant Russian Jewish widow struggling to raise eight children, yet Mom’s stories revealed the joy of anticipating what was in her stocking.

I have always wondered whether my great-grandmother in Minsk actually let her children hang stockings on Christmas Eve, or if that was grandma’s assimilation to living in America.

Either way, I am glad the tradition was handed down to my mother who handed it down to her children. As a child living in a mostly non-Jewish Virginia community, I enjoyed celebrating a holiday, even if it wasn’t ours, on the same night as the rest of the world, or so it seemed to the young Patty.

As for my brother being cheated out of Uncle Ralph’s Hanukkah gelt, I can only hope his stockings were filled with way better presents than his siblings had. It may be too little too late but I mailed him a crisp, new five-dollar bill to arrive on Christmas Eve.

Email Patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on X @patriciabunin and patriciabunin.com.