Just-don't-call-them-Easter eggs

One of my fondest memories from childhood was dying Easter eggs and hoping my artistic creation would be chosen for the Passover seder plate.

It's a tradition I'm proud to share with my otherwise exclusively Jewish children, and I was even more excited to get coloring when I found this tutorial for dying eggs naturally.

Zoe, Ada and I hunted around the kitchen for color-rich items we could use for our eggs and tried to predict what the results would look like after the boiling and overnight soaking was done.

Because we have a limited number of unused glass jars (we use them for salad dressing, leftovers and simple syrup) and some eggs didn't survive Ada's enthusiastic drop into the pot, we didn't dye very many eggs. But those we did are so pretty it will be hard to decide which one to pick for the seder plate.

 In case you're interested, the blue eggs were made with blueberries; the reddish-brown came from black tea, coffee beans, a cinnamon stick and whole cloves. The light green eggs were the result of green tea and cilantro, and the bright yellow egg was tumeric and a carrot. We dried the eggs and polished them with mineral oil before putting them back in the fridge. Also, this photo doesn't really do them justice--the camera on my Samsung phone is such crap.

You won't be getting a holiday card from me

Unless you are my daughter's teacher, daycare provider or named Marge (there are two of them), don't count on a festive envelope from the House of Klein. In the interest of saving trees, postage and my sanity, I'm cutting out holiday cards this year. Anyone hungry for a photo of my kids or an update on our lives knows exactly where they can find one.

I enjoy getting cards (or any personal snail mail, really), so I know I'll be feeling more guilty with every envelope's arrival. But it won't weaken my resolve. I'm not updating my address book, stressing about finding the perfect picture of our two kids or signing our names until I'm weak in the wrist. I'm not licking envelopes, affixing stamps or inserting year-end letters detailing 12 months of salary freezes, freelance furloughs and our nonetheless fabulous trip to Australia.

New to this blog and want the highlights? Here it is: A got pottytrained and Z learned to read.

Happy Chanukah!

Maybe I have too much on my plate...

Just as I was berating myself for not blogging but not having the energy to blog about everything that's happened in the past week (trip to LA, company holiday party, company after-party, interview with the creator of Yummie Tummie, preschool holiday party, co-worker's holiday party, a fleeting case of pink eye, Chavurah Chanukah party, our new kitty, etc., etc.)... I find myself having a truly blog-worthy moment.

I filled up our electric teakettle with water to make tea... and put it on the gas stove.

This, ladies and gentlemen, this what idiocy (or maybe too much wine and too little sleep) looks like:

Now that I've gotten that out there, here are a couple of photos from the Montessori holiday party. First the kids sang their favorite songs in their individual classrooms. (A wanted to sit with her sister "on stage.")

Then we joined the rest of the school for food, face painting and a silent auction. I won a pizza lunch for Z and 9 friends with "Mr Bruce," the school business manager.

Z with Evan, who she's loved since she was in diapers

Julia, one of Z's best friends, actually spent much of the evening leading A around by the hand.

Stay tuned for highlights from my conversation with Yummie Tummie's Heather Thomson. I asked her how--besides wearing her tank tops--a girl can look thin and shapely in 9 degree weather.

I've bid farewell to Christmakkuh

I'm the product of intermarriage. My Jewish mother and Methodist father met in high school in the middle of America, went to college together, married and got their PhDs. Mom was raised in the Reform tradition and Dad didn't care much for church, so it was agreed any kids would be raised Jewish.

But raising your kids Jewish as an interfaith Foreign Service family is a touch more difficult than signing up with the closest synagogue and sending your kids to Jewish summer camp. You see, I attended Hebrew school after Friday night services, which were held in a chapel on the Army base in Berlin. Our cantor took advantage of his day job at the commissary to provide for the weekly challah and ice cream oneg.

But as friendly as our miniature congregation was, I didn't know any Jewish kids my own age and I was surrounded, not just by the commercial Christmas of mall Santas and colored lights, but by the trappings of German Weihnachten,complete with crosses, creches, caroling and endless Christmas markets. I don't know if it was by my father's request or an obligation my mother felt because they did so much entertaining, but we started "doing Christmas." We ate the chocolates from the Advent calendars given to my parents as gifts, decorated a tree and my sister and I set our shoes outside our bedroom doors so our parents could fill them with treats.

I liked the pomp and circumstance and I loved the candy, but I remember feeling a little confused; why were we celebrating Christmas if we didn't believe in Christ? Like most Jews, I'd always felt other around Christmas. Now I felt like an outsider and an imposter. I had enough Midnight Mass-attending friends to know our half-hearted, secular shows of Christmas cheer weren't authentic. We mouthed "Jesus" when singing Christmas songs. We didn't wear matching velvet dresses and pose for family photos before the fireplace. We didn't have stockings embroidered with our names. Or ornaments memorializing Baby's First Christmas. We didn't have a train encircling our tree. A wreath on the door. Special seasonal plates. We were "doing Christmas," but we were doing it all wrong!

And as if being Jewish-but-with-Christmas in Germany wasn't awkward enough, imagine moving to Pakistan just as you're supposed to start preparing for your Bat Mitzvah! While living in Islamabad, we kept our Star of David necklaces tucked under our shirts and continued putting our Hanukkah presents under a Christmas tree. We even hung our socks up on the mantle for Mom to fill with tangerines, chocolate and tiny bottles of 4711. (We filled our parents' socks with hand-drawn coupons good for a backrub or "1 clean of my room, no whining.")

I didn't get the chance to reconnect with my religion until we moved back to the U.S. I was 15 when I decided I was going to be a Jew and I threw myself into Confirmation class, continuing my religious education in Post-Con study groups with the rabbi and volunteering as a camp counselor at an observant Jewish summer camp. I told my Mom I'd rather we didn't buy a Christmas tree and I guess she and Dad agreed, because we never trimmed one again. We spent Christmas Eve with my Dad's relatives and went to the movies or ice skating on Christmas. Even my Christian grandmother picked up on my new passion for Judiasm; she stopped sending me Christmas presents wrapped in Santa paper and supplemented my Chanukah presents with Rosh Hashanah and Passover cards!

Since I married a full-blooded Jew whose Christmas celebrations consisted of Chinese food and movie-going, there was no question ours would be a tree and stocking-free home each December. My 4-year-old daughter gets an earful about Santa from her preschool friends, but she understands that different families have different religions and different traditions and hers is Jewish.

Plenty of intermarried families "do it all," celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah each year, and that's fine. I grew up happy and well adjusted with a menorah next to the Christmas tree. But it bothered me because these aren't really secular holidays. A fundamental part of being Jewish is not believing the birth of Baby Jesus marks the arrival of the Messiah. So don't be surprised if your kids decide to fully identify with one religion or the other. Or if they walk away from a religious identity altogether. Because you really can't be both without cheapening each side.

Ho-ho-Chanukah

This image is from President Bush's Chanukah party invitation. Yes, it features a Christmas tree. Shave the date indeed, folks.

It may come as a surprise, but December may just be my favorite time to be Jewish. Moms across America as freaking out about Christmas card photos, Santa's wrapping paper, hiding presents, putting up a tree, stringing lights and setting the table with special snowman tableware. Meanwhile, I spend $10 on a new box of candles and a couple of bags of Chanukah gelt. I'm not even making latkes this year; rumor has it Trader Joe's frozen potato pancakes are even better than homemade.

As a Jew, I can partake in the parts of the Christmas season I like (exchanging cards and homemade gifts, going to holiday parties, drinking eggnog, and stuffing my face with peppermint ice cream and 10 kinds of cookies) without the stress and craziness of "doing Christmas," which, if my friends and co-workers are to be believed, requires the production of an elaborate home-cooked meal, doing the rounds with relatives and convincing your skeptical kids that a fat man in a red suit and some flying reindeer are going to visit your chimney-less house to eat cookies and give you fabulous presents.

Seriously, if the holidays have got you feeling merry bad in a stressed out, overwhelmed kind of way, free help is available from familyaware.org. Thank you Parent Bloggers Network for spreading the word about this nonprofit.

I saw my colleague kissing Santa Claus

Top three ways Marketing Mommy knows the holidays have arrived at work...

1. Fattening food gifts begin arriving from photographers, sound studios, photo retouchers and other vendors. And 99 percent of the goodies goes to art directors.
2. No one's at work. Even though the whole agency shuts down from December 21-January 2, half of my coworkers will be out next week.
3. The agency's youngest, singlest girls don Santa hats and push a drink cart around the agency. Have a mudslide and benefit the Off the Street Club. How's that for guilt-free indulgence?