We tried to get this card out to everyone, but in case it didn't make it to your mail box, Merry Christmas from the Welch Family! | |||
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
2011 Christmas Card
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Happy Hanukkah!
Growing up in Winston-Salem NC, the only Festival of Lights we knew of was the yearly event at Tanglewood. Now, with the Hanukkah season upon us, we are becoming culturally aware! The kids have been busy making Hanukiyot (menorrahs) and spinning s'vivons (dradles) at school, and we are invited to four different family candle lightings in the homes of friends this week! These are exciting times.
Adam Sandler - The Chanukah Song
In order to pull our weight this holiday season, we hosted a Christmas party at our house a couple of nights ago. We invited friends from Lydia's and Will's classes, and ended up with 16 kids and their parents over for ornament making and cupcake decorating. We explained why we celebrate Christmas and shared some of our family's Christmas traditions. Everyone loved the tree and had fun asking questions about stockings, Santa Claus, and baby Jesus. Yes, they were all Israeli, and for many this was their first time seeing a Christmas tree in someone's home. In fact, today a random parent from a different Kindergarten class approached Stewart and said, "Are you the one with the Christmas tree? My daughter heard about it at school, and she wants to come over and see it." How funny.
Another highlight from this week: Lydia's school Hanukkah Party.
The party was scheduled for 4:45 one day after school. I was thinking we were going to go to her classroom, have some doughnuts, spin some dradles and head back home. I didn't know there was a whole performance in store.
We arrived on time and were directed to the school gym. There, the kids split off in their class groups, and the parents were directed to the gym bleachers. Stewart was in Jerusalem, running a 10k with the other 2 Israel Olmsted scholars, so Will and I were on our own. So, once we were packed in like sardines, we were ready for the show. But wait, what's this? An hour long gymnastics performance put on by the school gymnastics team? Oh, I see. It's registration time and they are looking for new recruits. What better time than to bamboozle the kindergarten class Hanukkah party and entertain a captive audience. Interesting. The gymnastics was surprisingly impressive, but still.....one hour? Really!?
Ok, so after the gymnastics demo, we were redirected to the school atrium where the official Hanukkah party was to begin. After we were all seated again (for the most part, because honestly, Israelis never just sit and watch), the 3 kindergarten classes started to file in to the pitch black room, carrying flashlights. Clever, because Hanukkah is the festival of lights. Not so clever, because you have no idea where your kid is or if they are even there. So, this is how the first couple of songs were "performed:" In a pitch black room, with 5 year olds waving flashlights. From there, the kids sang and danced 5 more songs, the Hanukiyah was lit, and then we were dismissed to their classrooms for doughnuts and dradles. The whole thing was true to form utter chaos, and utterly enjoyable. It's always an experience in these parts.
A few warnings about the video footage:
-Will was on my lap
-We were packed like sardines
-Will was on my lap
Sorry, it's not the best quality. Also, I accidentally finalized the whole project before cutting the gymnastics footage down. We secretly wanted you to feel our pain. Feel free to fast forward as needed.
Also for your viewing pleasure...you just can't beat classic Adam Sandler:
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Bah Humbug & Merry Christmas!
This is our first holiday season outside of the U.S., and I must say it's been a bit dreary.
There was no sign of Halloween. OK, we can live with that.
No sign of fall (my favorite season) or Thanksgiving (besides our own). This one gets to me a little, but we do have experience living in California, so we know how to make it through without fall.
But now it's Christmas. We've never lived anywhere without Christmas. Not just no snow and no cold weather Christmas, but nothing...nada....in the way of the holiday spirit or festive cheer. At least, this is the case in Tel Aviv. Plenty of Hannukah, though.
So, this year on the day after thanksgiving we were super excited to race downstairs to our storage unit and unpack our Christmas boxes. We had been counting down the days for weeks.
Yay!!! Christmas is here!!!
...or not. So, we packed these boxes, setting aside the most crucial decorations, for our move one year ago, and then the movers came and repacked them 6 months later. This is what we found:
- a four foot tall tree left to us by the last scholars
- broken lights
- a nativity set
- one box of ornaments
That's it.
No stockings.
No Advent calendar.
No Christmas books.
No candles, bows, wrapping paper.
No star for the top of the tree.
You get the idea.
I know, I can already hear you saying it, thinking it. "Be grateful for what you have." But when you are face to face with sincere disappointment, it's a little easy to lose perspective. So I did. I had a pity party. I disparaged over all the traditions we would miss... How bare our apartment would be... About how the dream I had of making our home a Christmas oasis was dashed. Stewart didn't seem to struggle with any of this. Go figure.
And then, the next morning I pulled myself together, ended the pity party, and started searching the apartment for scraps of fabric and old clothes that I could turn into Christmas stockings.
Walla! Not exactly Martha Stewart, but that'll do.
Then, I went on a man hunt for Christmas tree lights. Not easy to find around here. Eventually, we found 2 boxes at this Russian book store not far from Jaffa:
Now, there's something you should know about these lights. They are a little crazy. Apparently, plain white Christmas lights aren't on the Russian import list. Only colored, flashing ones. Thankfully, you can adjust the flashing intensity, but oh my....just see for yourself:
So, at the end of the day, I finally came to terms with it all, and made the realization that all of you probably made at line 2 of this rant. Yes, we may not have our traditional decorations or much of anything in the way of an American Christmas, but for pete's sake - we have Bethlehem! And Nazareth! We have an opportunity to start new traditions. We attend a darling little church in Jaffa with a fantastic Christmas celebration planned. There are Christian Arab villages to see and other cultures to observe.
I was just on the phone with the past Tel Aviv scholar's wife yesterday, and she helped me seal my new perspective. She said, "You have an amazing opportunity to have Christmas without commercialism."
And she's right.
Shalom Y'all...E
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
The Jerusalem Wedding
Back in September I had the privilege of attending a wedding in Jerusalem. I jumped at the opportunity, because what's more cultural than a Jewish Wedding in Jerusalem? I arrived promptly at 6, expecting the ceremony to start at 630, as was advertised on the invitation. That was lesson one...this is the middle east and apparently these events just kind of have a life of their own. They'll start when they are good & ready. I found that after a solid 2+ hours of mingling, family pictures, eating tasty catered food (kosher no doubt), meeting more friends & family, the ceremony still hadn't started. This was not like a southern protestant wedding at all.
Eventually, the night unfolded and I was exposed to several Jewish traditions that were, well, quite foreign to me. Here are just a few examples:
1)The signing of the Ketubah (קתובה) before the ceremony. This is a jewish marriage contract. It basically spells out the rights of the bride in the event of a divorce. The Talmud states that purpose of this contract is to make it difficult for a man to divorce his wife. Pictured below are the groom, his father, & the father-of-the-bride.
2)Praying- Following the signing of the Ketubah, there was a lot of praying. This all took place in a room full of men only before the ceremony. This appeared rather impromptu and disorganized, but then again, everybody seemed to know what direction to face & what to say. Kind of like everyone doing their own thing, but all at the same time and in the same place. Then, all of the sudden, dancing/singing/clapping broke out, a band materialized, and everyone paraded up to where the ceremony was to be held. It was crazy--with clapping, jumping and dancing the whole way. This was a weird, fun, energetic, lively, and surprisingly contagious way to start nuptials.
3) Ceremony- Here, things were a bit more like I expected. The bride walked down the isle, blessings were said, ring exchanged (actually, only the bride got one), and the band was much more chill at this point. One interesting thing I saw was that the bride walked around the groom 7 times, showing that this particular couple is more orthodox in their practices. In this ritual the groom symbolizes Jerusalem. Another custom common to Jewish wedding is the crushing of a glass under the groom's heel. This symbolizes the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. So, even in times of joy and celebration, Jews are always looking back to the past while placing hope in the future.
One stark contrast in general between an Israeli event, even a wedding, and it's US counterpart is the overall 'do-your-own-thing' informality of everyone in attendance. So, while all these parts of the ceremony are taking place, some guests are watching while others are chatting, mingling or walking around. I'm not sure if this is normal for every Jewish wedding ceremony, but I know you wouldn't dream of trying something so informal in the American South.
After all was said & done, the newlyweds disappeared while all the guests went to the banquet hall to hang out & wait for their arrival. Wait & wait & wait...until the marriage is officially consummated . Now this part I found hard to believe; and I'm pretty sure that a male thought of this tradition. I thought it was something only found in Yentl. That being said, if I had known of this particular tradition when I was 22, I definitely would have petitioned for that to be part of our nuptials. Oh well...
Finally, the bride & groom appear and dancing begins: WOW.
I knew that there would be festivities afterwards to celebrate the marriage occasion, but I really had no idea what to expect. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. This was a celebration in every sense of the word. At first I felt like a spectator not only because I'm not Jewish, but I'm also the only male there not wearing a head covering, I barely understand what is going on with my beginner Hebrew, and Lord knows that I can't grow a beard. Before I knew it, my friend Nahum, the father-of-the-groom, dances up to me and pushes me in to this swirling vortex of happy dancing Jew men. I've never danced with so many dudes in my life! Good times:)
More than anything else I felt that the guests dancing were truly happy for the young couple, and it fostered a real sense of community right there in the banquet hall. This not uncommon for any good wedding--its a big party. The segregation between the sexes may seem strange or archaic at first, but I came to see this tradition in a more positive light. It gave the chance for all the men to dance together, and basically be free of the pressures that inevitably go with mixed company. It also was a chance for the bride to have some time dancing & chatting with her friends--something that I know Elizabeth would have enjoyed at our wedding.
Pictured below are some wonderful folks that I met there--family of the bride. We hung out, talked, they explained the order of the events, and they graciously suffered my Hebrew all night. Later on that month, they invited our whole family for shabbat dinner (kids & all). Very generous...
All-in-all, it was an wonderful experience, and I met some really great people along the way. For an explanation as to how I was invited in the first place, that is a story for another blog.
I want to extend a personal, special thanks to Nahum & his dear family for the generous invitation, and מזל טוב! to the young bride & groom.
Shalom y'all, Stew
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**CORRECTION**- As it turns out, the bride & groom don't actually consummate the marriage immediately after the ceremony while hundreds of guests wait while eating wine & cheese (as I had previously deduced). They just get to spend a little time together, eat something since the groom has fasted all day, and get a chance to chill before the big party. Yet another classic example of cultural misunderstandings, or what Elizabeth likes to call, me being a big idiot. How was I supposed to know?!?
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