Eight Days Eight Menorahs

Chanukah has come extremely early this year, and no one was prepared for it, which I can tell because I haven't gotten a single present. Not even a married present.

What I do have is a lot of menorahs. Eight, coincidentally enough. So I figured I'd give you a grand tour of them (and of my Chanukah decorations).

Okay. I'll start with this one. It's a New Paltz Crafts Fair menorah. My mother told me to buy myself a present from her one New Paltz Crafts Fair, and I decided the appropriate thing would be a menorah. My mother loves trees, so I got myself a Tree Of Life menorah. It's usually in the center of the bookcase, but the washer and drier are right opposite, so I had to move the menorah to get the picture.

I decided a number of years ago that I'd like to collect menorahs. I mentioned this to my friends Joyce and Lew and they gave me this one.

Lew decided one wasn't enough. So he gave me another.

This lion menorah is one I gave my father. My father's name was Leo, and he was hard to buy presents for, so I decided to buy him lion things, until maybe he'd decide he wanted to collect lion things and then I'd have no problems buying him presents. It didn't work. I took the menorah back after my mother moved into the nursing home. I keep it on a window sill, which is why you can see blue sky and a roof in the background.

I really like my electric menorah, but I couldn't get it to look all nice and pretty for this blog entry. Not for lack of trying. I put it in the dining room and the kitchen and the hallway and Scooter's bathroom. I think I'll go with the bathroom version.

I had a space in my living room that cried out for a menorah. So I bought this one for myself. I have to tell people it's a menorah, because it doesn't much look like one.

When I decided last night to do a blog entry about my menorahs, I thought I only have seven (not that seven isn't a perfectly reasonable number to have). Then I realized my Chanukah teddy bear is posing with a menorah, which is why he's a Chanukah teddy bear, and not a Purim teddy bear or a St. Patrick's Day teddy bear (well, he's the wrong color for that).

The Chanukah teddy bear is part of my Chanukah decorations. So here's the Chanukah window. Not everyone has a Chanukah stocking, especially not one that says Susan. To the left is a Chanukah window hanging and to the right a Chanukah angel. The latter is not traditional, but then again, neither's the stocking.

Here's the menorah I actually use. My parents gave it to me when I was living in Greenwich Village. I call it the Chianti menorah. That's decades of candle wax on it, each and every drip bringing back a memory. Not to me, maybe, but I'm sure someone remembers each and every drip.

How can I have a blog entry with all these pictures and not a single one of Scooter? He didn't pose at all this morning, so here's a Scooter classic from I don't know when. That's the tree of life menorah in the background (in its rightful position).

Happy last few days of Chanukah everyone!