One "unJewish" family holiday down...

...but "the big one" (and you know which one I'm talking about) is yet to come!

In all seriousness, Thanksgiving weekend with my mom and sister went about as well as it usually does, which is to say pretty darned well for a family with four kids, with almost no impact from our semi-controversial first year of Judaism.

There were a few funny-awkward moments – the kids were actually upset when I started the prayer before the Thanksgiving meal in English, for example, and insisted on re-blessing the food in Hebrew immediately afterward – but my family seemed generally ready to accept this Jewish thing. As long as we were happy to start talking (and prepping for) Christmas on Friday, and steer clear of our own upcoming holiday, that is. :-/

My mother did make two negative comments about Judaism, one a minor thing about how baking challah would send her back to Methodism, the other that led to a conversation about how she (like me) got a really skewed idea of what Judaism is all about from studying all of the bad things Jesus had to say about some of the Jews back in his day. Another funny-awkward (and proud) moment came some time after that conversation (in which, among other things, Mom explained to me that she could never do without Christianity's particular view of forgiveness, what she calls "God's grace") when one of my kids said at dinner that "the Jewish God forgives you for all of the bad that you do." Which is true, Christian propaganda aside. 

The previous weekend with my in-laws in town also brought fewer objections to our newfound Judaism than last time we had been together, and said in-laws are actually pitching in Chanukkah presents. 

All said, I'm beginning to feel like this might work!

A belated Shabbat shalom, and Happy Challah-days, everybody!

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