{"id":49252,"date":"2021-11-29T08:15:05","date_gmt":"2021-11-29T08:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/?p=49252"},"modified":"2021-11-29T08:15:05","modified_gmt":"2021-11-29T08:15:05","slug":"holiday-happy-hannukah-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/holiday-happy-hannukah-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"HOLIDAY: HAPPY HANNUKAH 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>HAPPY HANNUKAH 2021<\/h1>\n<p>Hannukah came a bit early this year, beginning last night. I always think of this holiday as being in December, so when it starts in November, it throws me off a bit.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_49244\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1_2014hanukkah_shutterstock_220292938-e1637955810834.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-49244\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-49244\" src=\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1_2014hanukkah_shutterstock_220292938-e1637955810834-300x231.jpg\" alt=\"Does anyone in the entire world even know how to play &quot;dreidel?!&quot;\" width=\"300\" height=\"231\" srcset=\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1_2014hanukkah_shutterstock_220292938-e1637955810834-300x231.jpg 300w, https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1_2014hanukkah_shutterstock_220292938-e1637955810834.jpg 672w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-49244\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Does anyone in the entire world even know how to play &#8220;dreidel?!&#8221;<\/p><\/div>\n<p>But it&#8217;s actually nice to have both Thanksgiving and Hannukah come so many weeks before Christmas, because it elongates the holiday season.<\/p>\n<p>In all honesty, though, I never really know exactly <em>how<\/em> to celebrate Hannukah. Mr. X and I light the menorah every night, (even though he&#8217;s not Jewish; so I really appreciate that he joins me for that lovely ritual. He even dons a yarmulke for it!) And I usually get him bags of chocolate \u201cgelt,\u201d (which actually means \u201cmoney,\u201d but all of us celebrants are happy to give children, and candy-addicted boyfriends, little mesh bags of foil-wrapped chocolate \u201ccoins.\u201d) But that&#8217;s it. He and I need virtually nothing else in life, outside of services, such as massages, facials, and haircuts, so there&#8217;s not much left to give each other in the gift category. (Too bad for us, because this holiday lasts eight days and nights, so there&#8217;s plenty of time to give\/receive a plethora of gifts!)<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_49251\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/9154SQTU6KL._SL1500_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-49251\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-49251\" src=\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/9154SQTU6KL._SL1500_-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Hannukah &quot;gelt.&quot;\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/9154SQTU6KL._SL1500_-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/9154SQTU6KL._SL1500_-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/9154SQTU6KL._SL1500_-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/9154SQTU6KL._SL1500_.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-49251\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hannukah &#8220;gelt.&#8221;<\/p><\/div>\n<p>So what I\u2019m planning to do for Mr. X once again this year, as I have for the past few Hannukahs, is to spend at least an hour on each of the eight days\/nights gathering more fabulous items for my next upcoming Holiday Gifts Garage Sale! I adored that the people who chose all their Hannukah gifts at my most recent event were all soooo thrilled, even though I have a feeling they kept a lot of those items for<em> themselves<\/em>! That de-cluttering actually gave <em>all<\/em> of us a good time\u2014Mr. X, my friends who help with the garage sales, (therefore they get gifted a bit themselves,) the buyers, the recipients of those purchasers&#8217; gifts, and especially moi, because, more than anything, I love seeing people be so happy! So I&#8217;ll be thrilled to purge even more as my Hannukah gifts to Mr. X this week.<\/p>\n<p>By the way&#8211;the items I offer are all new, (meaning not used, so great for gifts,) but while I work for those eight days and nights, I also gather all of my year-end charity donations. That&#8217;s another win-win-win. (I have a suggestion of a new lovely place for you to donate yourselves; I&#8217;ll tell you all about it in an upcoming article.)<\/p>\n<p>For me, doing all that is the absolute best way to celebrate my heritage. So, Happy Hannukah to <em>me<\/em>!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_49247\" style=\"width: 230px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/47398225_10217619836832846_4963467092922728448_n.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-49247\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-49247\" src=\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/47398225_10217619836832846_4963467092922728448_n-220x300.jpg\" alt=\"Lovely menorah with the perfect holiday sentiments as candles.\" width=\"220\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/47398225_10217619836832846_4963467092922728448_n-220x300.jpg 220w, https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/47398225_10217619836832846_4963467092922728448_n.jpg 704w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 220px) 100vw, 220px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-49247\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lovely menorah with the perfect holiday sentiments as candles.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In addition to that mirth, I have one Hannukah tale for you at the start of this lovely holiday. Actually, just as it occurred to me to share it with you this year, I discovered that I had alluded to the heartwarming holiday story four years ago! I apologize now because to give my readers an incomplete story is just not right. Doing that is basically a shonda! (You see how much more Jewish I get around my own ethnicity&#8217;s holidays?!)<\/p>\n<p>So I&#8217;m fixing that oversight right now by giving you that whole happy Hannukah history here:<\/p>\n<p>Many years ago, on Hannukah, I had just returned home from a lovely late afternoon latke party. I got into bed for a bit, to continue the coziness, but I left the bedroom door open so I could hear Mr. X watching <em>It&#8217;s a Wonderful Life<\/em> in the living room. We had gotten a beautiful little toy poodle a few weeks before, and had named him Clarence, after our previous dog, Bud. (Bud was then an angel, and our favorite angel is Clarence from the film <em>It&#8217;s a Wonderful Life<\/em>. Hence the moniker.) But after a few days, and with Mr. X having to travel for a while, we had asked the breeder to take him back because we felt we just couldn&#8217;t care for a dog in our crazy busy lives. But as I lay there that evening, basking in the Hannukah camaraderie I had just experienced that day, and hearing Jimmy Stewart invoke the name \u201cClarence\u201d multiple times, I seriously felt that I had just abandoned my child. And around the holidays, to boot!!! So I jumped up and started yelling that we had to get our dog back!<\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s just what we did. While it was still Hannukah. So I always associate Clarence, who is one of the three loves of my life, (Mr. X and Bud being the other two, of course,) with this holiday. And actually, with Christmas, too, because <em>It&#8217;s a Wonderful Life<\/em> is basically a Christmas movie.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_49259\" style=\"width: 712px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_0873-copy-e1637957121902.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-49259\" class=\"size-large wp-image-49259\" src=\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_0873-copy-e1637957121902-1024x419.jpg\" alt=\"Our perfect boy, Clarence the Singing Dog, helping me write, back in the day. Boy, how we miss him. Photo by Mr. X.\" width=\"702\" height=\"287\" srcset=\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_0873-copy-e1637957121902-1024x419.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_0873-copy-e1637957121902-300x122.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 702px) 100vw, 702px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-49259\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Our perfect boy, Clarence the Singing Dog, helping me write, back in the day. Boy, how we miss him. Photo by Mr. X.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>And that is how our precious Clarence got into our lives for good, thus making it truly a wonderful life for all concerned. And it all happened during Channukah.<\/p>\n<p>I hope that all of you have some wonderful holiday memories, as well. I&#8217;d love to read them, so please share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I wish a very Happy Hanukkah to all my readers who celebrate this holiday. And please continue to stay safe!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HAPPY HANNUKAH 2021 Hannukah came a bit early this year, beginning last night. I always think of this holiday as being in December, so when it starts in November, it throws me off a bit. But it&#8217;s actually nice to have both Thanksgiving and Hannukah come so many weeks before Christmas, because it elongates the<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/holiday-happy-hannukah-2021\/\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-holidays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49252"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49265,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49252\/revisions\/49265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}