Category Archives: holidays

on the first night of hanukkah, i brought the menorah out of the basement and showed it to the kids. “it’s hanukkah!” i told them.

a week or so before this, i had told them that hanukkah was coming. “veronica?” claudia asked. no, i said, hanukkah. it’s not christmas, but presents are involved. they got that much. now, they saw me taking out candles.

“생일 축하 hanukkah,” sang claudia. which is about the best joke ever, but you have to know how to sing “happy birthday” in korean to get it. (the first line of “happy birthday” in korean is, phonetically, “seng il chukkah hamnidah“. the word hanukkah fits in there perfectly, and both our kids are still at the point where any flame, however large — including a pizza oven at a restaurant — is cause to sing “happy birthday”.)

after a few nights of hanukkah, the kids were getting in the groove of it. candles got lit, then daddy, of all people, sang a song (which claudia was soon imitating — it began barooooooh and went on rather freestyle from there), and they got a small gift. and then, often, got to open “the box of candy”, i.e. the charlie brown chocolate advent calendar.

by the fourth night, claudia actually wanted to know what we were “doing for mandookah” that evening. (for those who do not know, mandoo is the korean word for “dumpling”.)

i suppose we did nothing to dissuade the children from believing that hanukkah is a korean holiday. we had kimchi with our latkes, as well as dak gochu jang bokeum (a spicy chicken dish that is our signature potluck item for the past five years or so), as we did last year — it all goes great with aunt lisa’s mom’s jello salad recipe (which has a lot of nuts, pineapple, and sour cream/cream cheese in it).

the gift for night six of hanukkah was temporary tattoos of hwa-tu cards.

and the gift for the eighth night was korean stickers, featuring iconic images such as tal, a changgo, fans, and children in hanbok.

maybe claude figured that since she gets a whole week for kwanzaa, we needed a week’s worth of korean holiday, too.

korea has a harvest festival in the early fall that is perhaps their largest holiday. my friend kyung — with whom we do korean storytime — and i decided it was a great year for us to celebrate it with the kids. i had read that adoptive families who celebrate chuseok sometimes incorporate birthfamily honors and remembrances, in addition to the tradition of honoring one’s ancestors. plus, we thought, it would be a great time for the kids to learn 절 — the very formal bow made to one’s ancestors. the kids already do 인사, which is the more common, every day bow, but claude, having a flair for the dramatic, is most of the way to 절 already with her 인사.

i went online to look for some images with which i could perhaps explain our upcoming celebration to the kids. the images i found generally featured children and adults wearing hanbok, and there was a common theme of persimmon trees bearing ripe fruit.

the first image i found that i really loved was this one.

it seemed to suggest that we would be juggling baguettes outdoors for chuseok. (images in this post used without permission — 죄송합니다. i couldn’t figure out who to ask and hope that in the interest of education, i will be forgiven.)

then i found these two images, which are so similar they made me think they were perhaps copyrighted advertising characters. i was, of course, interested in the “black” figures and am making an effort to find out what this is all about. do these characters have various holiday 떡 for heads? they are 너무 귀여워요 (too cute) but i want to know more.

being a holiday-head — who has a hard time not rushing the halloween season, but knows better than to do it — i was happy to have september harvest holidays on which to focus. thinking about our amended altar and our amended feast, we decided that fruit, noodles, and SPAM would be very appreciated.

kyung went shopping in northern jersey yesterday, and she came back with LOTS of dessert treats, 전, mandu, and her mom even made some food for us. our spread was fabulous. as you can see, béla had a hard time keeping his hands off of it.

my favorite items were the muk — the acorn jelly with the delicious sauce that kyung made — and the spam fried in egg batter. i mean. that was AMAZING. there was also a seriously wonderful fried doughnut we were sent home with… i mean SERIOUSLY wonderful.

after eating, we dressed the kids in their hanbok.

pregnant kyung got down on the floor again and again to teach the kids 절!

what a good time we had. we took a taxi home and claudia conked out in it. hoping for an extra-long nap and chuseok leftovers for dinner, so daddy can have some too!