Here we are.  Second day of a Hanukkah with a 4-year-old who’s expecting 8 toys and the opportunity to individually count each of the 45 candles in the box.

That’s a lot of numbers.

The bad news is that means we have a lot of counting to do. The good news is that all of that counting helps us keep our young son distracted, if only for a minute, from the magnetic pull of Christmas.

Please understand, I have nothing against Christmas. It’s a festive and wonderful time of year, and the TV specials, especially the one with Heat Miser and Snow Miser, are awesome.

But we’re trying to raise a Jewish child, and it’s hard to pit potato pancakes against the tsunami of holiday cheer and commercialism that is Christmas.  You want toys?  Christmas has ’em.  You want great deals on electronics? Christmas has that too?  You want funny movies? Yep.  You want good times with family (or, at least, hilarious anecdotes to tell in years to follow).  Check.  You want bosses in a good mood?  Yep, Christmas even has that.

About the only thing Christmas doesn’t have is a Kosher certification from the Rabbinical Union.

So, when there’s an opportunity to get our son really jazzed about Hanukkah, we’ll take it.  Even if it means we have to count to numbers higher than the stratosphere.  At least while we’re doing that, our son won’t be thinking about why there isn’t Rudolph the Red-Nosed Hasid.

The Hanukkah “Mensch on a Bench”