I was recently roped I…I mean asked to participate in Canter’s
Chanters Chanukah Extravaganza at my Temple. When it was first
presented to me, I thought, ‘Great, our Canter is a cool guy and is
probably open to doing some improv or something with the kids. That’s
got to be why he’s asking me. This’ll be fun.”
But, no. He griped that the kids were positively incapable of
doing improv and that was why he prevailed on my services as well as
other Temple members who happened to be performers; to write and
perform small vignettes that would be done eight times, as eight groups
were led through the Temple. The motif was to be “You want to know what Chanukah is all about? I’ll tell you what Chanukah’s all about…”
Each group was to represent one aspect of the celebration. My
friend Amy Simon, writer and performer of the wonderful show Cheerios
in My Underpants, volunteered to create some sort of wrap-around to
feature ‘latkes’. She had the run of the Temple kitchen and would be
making real latkes to give to the kids. Her idea was to create a Bubbie
personae.
Dreidels were up for grabs so I decided to take a whack at it. I love games and this is a mindless game much like Yahtzee, only you win pennies or chocolate.
The first thing I ever stole was a piece of Bazooka Bubble Gum. I lifted the small, red, white and blue rectangle out of the glass canister on the counter, wrapped my fist around it and shoved it in my pocket. My heart pounded against my chest with fear and excitement as I glanced around the store making sure no one had seen me. It was a rush. Taking it. Not getting caught. Pulling something off. Putting something over.
I don’t make a lot of kugels. I don’t make them because my kids don’t really eat them and as much as I want to eat the whole tray, it would take me a month to work off the calories. My grandma used to make them all the time. What I loved most about her kugels were the left overs. 
Eating potato pancakes carry many childhood memories for me, especially of summers spent with my paternal grandparents in the countryside of Hungary. I can almost clearly remember myself in the garden right outside the kitchen door, eating them as my mother brought them out, one by one, slathered with jelly or applesauce.
My husband is on active duty in the US Army, and for our first holiday
season together we were living in a little town called Sierra Vista,
Arizona, which is adjacent to Fort Huachuca, where he was stationed.
Since we had only been married since the previous January and we were
just starting our life together, we couldn’t afford to go home to our
beloved California and our families for the holidays, so we were
toughing it out in Sierra Vista alone.