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Glazed

By Chany Spira | December 9, 2020

I did it. I made doughnuts and latkes and just like in the song, I served it at the Chanukah candles burning bright

The thing with memories is that they have to be created. The problem with creating them is that the mother of the house is in charge of making, creating, and cleaning up all that memory making.

I personally have fond memories of rolling cookie dough and using Chanukah cookie cutters and decorating said cookies with an array of glazes and toppings.

And I remember the experimental carrot in the oil sizzling as my mother dropped in ball after ball of perfectly risen and shaped doughnut dough that we later filled with custard and jelly.

And of course, I want to make it happen in my house too. The problem is I’m tired and expecting and have all my kids home because we’re a girls-only family, and it’s vacation.

If you’re thinking that I should take it easy and wait for next year, I remember last year. It wasn’t much better. I was also tired and my kids were also home and the flu was going around. So I can’t guarantee next year will be better.

But don’t you worry, I did it. I made doughnuts and latkes and just like in the song, I served it at the Chanukah candles burning bright. But no one ate the latkes. They like French fries better.

As I sift the flour for the doughnuts, Daughter Number Three insists she wants to see. Of course I let her, because, hey, the only reason I’m making doughnuts is to create memories. But she bumps into the sifter and everything turns white. All my kids cluster around the pot of oil as I dump the dough in, and I feel nothing but exhaustion. The balls don’t magically float to the top or puff up or turn a miraculous shade of gold. They stay hard and lumpy.

But hey, it’s all about the glazes and toppings. So off to the table we go with glazes and toppings, while the counter is still covered with the spilled flour. I can’t just sit and watch them lick the glaze with their fingers and dip the doughnuts and then lick off the cream and leave the doughnuts on the plate. No, I supervise and intervene and quash nausea as they lick the cream and use the same finger to smear the doughnuts.

And my eyes glaze over, too.

Then my sweet husband comes home after a day in kollel. I don’t mind that he’s home. But I do resent the spring in his step. And he says kindly, “Today, kids, Mommy is sitting at the menorah for the full half hour! No one is going to bother her.”

I think of the brown-glazed kitchen table and floury white counter and unfolded laundry and baths that should be happening and the four-course Chanukah supper that’s half uncooked. And I sit on the couch.

But… memories. So I smile. Because the book of my youth had this Chanukah scene of the mother smiling on the couch next to the menorah.

I smile some more. And then the tears start leaking. I’m so, so tired. I try to picture my own mother at the menorah. Maybe there were also tears leaking from her eyes?

Then I realize, it doesn’t matter. Time has a way of glazing over those not-such-fun facts, and besides, it’s obvious that the good memories were the ones that remained. Because after all, this is our Chanukah gift to our children. All this memory making is the simchah in Yiddishkeit that will give them the strength against the modern-day Greeks — whoever or whatever it may be.

I carry this thought as I hand over gift after gift, as I take them to dizzying, dim, loud Chuck E. Cheese wondering when someone’s taking me for a massage or snow tubing or to bed.

When I finally do stagger off to bed, the smell of oil clinging to the very walls of my house, I know I better drift off quickly. I’ve got another memory-making day tomorrow.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 721)

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I did it. I made doughnuts and latkes and just like in the song, I served it at the Chanukah candles burning bright

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