Happy Hanoosakah!

Sooo, there isn’t a huge Jewish community in Noosa, it turns out. My searches for anything like a synagogue or JCC led me to a Facebook page for a…group? Or maybe it was a store? Or a place of worship? Even after a chat with them, during which they kindly invited us to come to their Hanukkah celebration, I still wasn’t sure. I appreciated the invitation, but we already had our plans. It was really just the stuff I was looking for - dreidels or a menorah, for instance.

Story spent Hanukkah morning finding cute dogs on the beach, just like in the Old Testament.

I’d swear this dog was half bear. He didn’t care about the holiday at all.

But no problem. We’re anything but sticklers for rules and traditions, so we got creative. No matzo meal? Let’s try almond meal. No dreidels? Dice will work. How ‘bout a menorah? Our friends’ beautiful candles can be held up by sand we scooped up from the beach! (We may have lit all the candles on the first night because it was just so pretty, but let’s keep that between us, okay?) Besides, we were celebrating with other non-Jews like me, so none of them was going to call us out on doing things wrong. If they dared to, no latkes for them!

Latkes made with almond meal are still very, very yummy.

We did find gelt! It wasn’t called gelt, and it had Queen Elizabeth and kangaroos all over it. But it still contained that mediocre chalky chocolate we all fight over each year, so it did the trick.

Regardless of whether we did it “right” or not, we had a wonderful night celebrating the holiday with some of our favorite humans in the world. We love sharing this part of our family’s traditions with others, especially when it’s in non-traditional ways and places.

This picture makes me laugh because Story was so mesmerized by the candles, she looks downright sad. Cheeseball Sagan next to her just makes it that much more noticeable.

There, that’s more like it.

Happy All-the-Days to everyone out there, however and wherever you celebrate whatever!

Happy All-the-Days to everyone out there, however and wherever you celebrate whatever with whomever!