Hanukkah Gelt S'more
Hanukkah lasts eight days, eight looooong days. Gelt S’mores help keep things lively.
And today being Christmas, Gelt S’mores also help cut the post-prandial greasiness from the lunch buffet lo mein.
Ours were made with Paskesz Continue reading
Connect 4: Gelt edition
Games and crafts should say, “touch me.” Whether in a whisper or a scream, they should entice. And what screams “touch me” like chocolate?
Here’s a variation on a classic board game perfect for Hanukkah parties, carnivals or just fun at home:
Simple, yes? You’d think. But size matters. We all know gelt brands vary in palatability, but they also vary in diameter and width. And successive generations of Connect Four frames vary in inner dimensions. The old yellow and blue frames—some with tab and slot assembly, some with pin and hole assembly—are not created equal, and the snazzy new dark blue versions are totally different. (Any of these will do, but not the new Launchers incarnation or the travel size game.)
In the Dreidel Cookies post, I mentioned a little card attached to the cookies dressed for a bake sale. I couldn’t bear the thought that the cookies, created with such intent, might get scarfed down without the scarfer understanding what they were scarfing. The card explained the name and meaning of each letter.
Same with the little dreidel/candy gifts we brought for my son’s class. (I did cave and add one piece of gelt to the dreidel, but I’m not sure I’ll do this next year. See “Hanukkah Parent Guidelines” post.) I made a slightly different card for the dreidels.
The double-sided card, about the size of a business card, was tucked in with a new dreidel (from Target, surprisingly). It explains the 4 letters and the dreidel rules, plus the briefest of explanations about Hanukkah. Find a reproducible copy at www.JewishEveryday.com.
Informative, politically correct gift/info card
Despite my mentioning the use of “nuts, candy or coins” as tokens, one mom told me the next day how her son came home and wanted to play the dreidel game over and over with his brand new dreidel. They played so many games she ended up driving to Costco to buy a bunch of chocolate gelt for the “loot” (her term). While I am thrilled the little boy was thrilled with the dreidel game, I am less thrilled that boy and mom felt like chocolate money was a mandatory aspect of the game.
Again, here’s an opportunity to postpone what may be an inevitable perceived link between Jews and money. We can do this by downplaying the gelt and demonstrating the dreidel game using whatever tokens are appropriate for that group (obviously avoiding choking hazards for teeny kids and nuts for allergic kids).
The take-home message for kids and parents should be that Hanukkah is about miracles and light, not about how much gold you can win by gambling.
Posted in Hanukkah, Jewish kids in nonJewish school
Photo caption: YULE LOG
Yes, during Hanukkah I made a Buche de Noel for the Teenager’s French class party. And really, it isn’t much different from the Jewish Jelly Roll tradition. Except, Jewish Jelly Rolls don’t pretend to be Christmas logs…
I am especially proud of the meringue mushrooms, oui?
After 8 days and nights, the Toddler never did figure out gelt was edible. He hoarded it, stacked it, skated on it, and shoved it behind books in every reachable bookcase, but he never realized what was beneath that shiny foil. (The dog did, however, and it is for times like this that I buy paper towels. Up came the foil, the chocolate, and other things one doesn’t like to see puddled on the kitchen floor.)
Speaking of gelt, we had a gelt shortage. No surprise, really, but annoying. Plenty of dreidels, plenty of candles, but no gelt. Had I been more proactive, I would have simply gone into the synagogue gift shop while picking up my kid any Sunday in November, and no doubt have been greeted by boxes of my favorite: silver-wrapped dark chocolate coins from Elite. Kosher pareve, and made in Israel (or Izruhl, as they say around here). But I was not proactive. I sent my husband to the grocery store about a week before Hanukkah, and he came back with what I thought, at first glance, were non-kosher discs imprinted with images of Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth. They turned out to be kosher, made-in-Izrhul, multi-nation coins (including shekels), and they turned out to be the only gelt we were able to buy. Luckily, the family went to a Latke dinner (I had a migraine and stayed home with the blue LED party lights turned OFF), and they came back with handfuls of the good gelt: silver Elite. Yum. The Teenager had to eat it in private, because I figured if we’d made it that far without Toddler catching on, we could make it ‘till 2010. Anticipating this inevitable epiphany, I will be sure to procure plenty of Elite well ahead of time.
Posted in Hanukkah, Jewish Identity, Jewish parenting
Tagged Chanuka, dreidels, gelt, Hanukkah, Jewish Identity
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