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 ,c161--Nakt/I,16;meRnii,s- (If ,(1,3t* , /k 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. An Aikni..tn regisw-ing Spitittfac Cci(-brallon a V and me LAYETTE, INFANT AND CHILDREN'S Happy Holidays from Y011f mercht al West Bloodold Plaza!