Gift Guide
CHANUKAH MEMORIES
from page 7
Grandparents Night
•
We give the children the pres-
ents that came in the mail and
get on the phone and talk to their
grandparents and their cousins scat-
tered around the country If your fam-
ily is closer, you could have a family
party.
Homemade Presents
• Night
This is definitely our favorite
night and has been consistently on our
list from the beginning. We draw lots
to decide who will make a present for
which family member. These presents
are always treasured — no matter how
simple or elaborate. My husband still
keeps the bills in a box that our son
decorated for that purpose when he
was five. The year our daughter
became a Bat Mitzvah, her older
brother created a plaque with her invi-
tation and pictures on it. My son
designed a menorah in the shape of a
cat for his cousin who loves cats. My
husband made comedy/tragedy masks
out of paper mache for our son, the
thespian.
Lately, we have enjoyed creating
elaborate Chanukah decorations for
our home, both inside and out, in
order to get back to a basic Chanukah
mitzvah, which is to publicize the mir-
acle. The point is that long after store-
bought presents have been broken or
forgotten, our memories of family
time at Chanukah remain. ❑
.Cherie Koller-Fox is the rabbi emeri-
tus of Congregation Eitz Chayim in
Cambridge, MA. She is a founder of the
Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish
Education and its past National
Chairperson. Rabbi Koller-Fox wrote
this article for Jewish Family Life!
wwwjewishfamily.com
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HOURS:
Monday - Friday, 10:00-5:30 • Saturday, 10:00-5:00
6718-C Orchard Lake Road • West Bloomfield, Michigan
(1 /4 mile south of Maple Rd. in the West Bloomfield Plaza)
(248) 855-3214
A Spiritual Keepsake
A new book creates a family heirloom
e Bar/Bat Mitzvah Memory Book: An Album for Treasuring the
Spiritual Celebration (Jewish Lights, $19.95) by Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin
and his wife, Nina Salkin, is set up as an interactive journal so the bar or
bat mitzvah child can record his experience. This interactive book has
space for writing and reflecting. It is designed to help everyone in the fam-
ily create the spiritual meaning of this joyful rite of passage.
The book is divided into sections beginning with "Who Am I and What
am I?" The child attaches his photo to a page, writes his Hebrew name,
and then lists qualities to emulate. Throughout the book the child inter-
acts with parents, grandparents, other relatives and rabbis.
According to the authors in the introduction, "This memory book will
help you see yourself as part of a rich
history that includes your family and
that goes beyond your family. The
Hebrew term for memory, zachor, is
used 169 times in the Torah. The
square root of 169 is 13, the age of
becoming bar/bat mitzvah. Memory
is the square root of everything we
do in Jewish life."
The Bar/Bat Mitzvah Memory
Book: An Album for Treasuring the
Spiritual Celebration by Rabbi
Jeffrey Salkin and Nina Salkin is
available at major bookstores and
at (800) 962-4544.
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LAYETTE, INFANT AND CHILDREN'S
Happy
Holidays
from Y011f
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West Bloodold
Plaza!