While ruminating over what to write about, I realized that because Purim comes along in mid-March this year, I might not have had anything interesting to tackle before that observance. No Jewish holidays to discuss. No Yontifs. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. What constitutes Yontif anyway? The Yiddish version of the Hebrew Yom Tov … literally meaning Good Day … has become synonymous with Holiday. A day we are meant to celebrate.
For me and our family there was an awful lot to commemorate the past few weeks. My husband Jeff and my son Cory were both born in February. And my daughter Heather and her husband Craig celebrated their anniversary too. Also, it’s when my brother-in-law Larry and Cousin Sondra had their birthdays. And when my dear friends Marney and Bob and Lesley and Bruce celebrated their anniversaries. I remember the days when one of my late January shopping sprees included the purchase of a pile of actual birthday and anniversary cards. Before the days when electronic cards became the order of the day.
Not to mention that it was my father’s birthday, day before Jeff’s, and every year I light the Yahrzeit candle in his blessed memory. Each year on Irving’s birthday my brother Gary, whose idea I have adopted to light on birthdays, sends me a beautiful photo of his candle burning brightly in his fireplace.
And although Jeff’s birthday brings along its set of stresses … what to buy for the man who not only has almost everything but orders himself pretty much exactly what I had finally decided to gift him, and usually right before his special day comes along … it becomes a fun holiday each year. Because we usually have an enjoyable family get together to celebrate, even though it’s not always on the exact day. Like this year, who knew when we would convene? The Olympics and the Super Bowl were an issue considering that Heather’s career involves both these events. So we had to put off celebrations a bit.
The other nerve wracking aspect to Jeff’s birthday is the fact that we’ve established the hard-and-fast imperative that we write each other a poem or song that is usually meant to be humorous … even though it’s only supposed to amuse each other privately. Outside people, even the kids, might not get the jokes. However, we both fret about having to create the birthday poem/song, especially having to write on the sly. This is an achievement made even more difficult these days when we are at home together so much. And although I knew it would surely ultimately get composed this year, it still caused a great deal of anxiety until the darn thing was finally on paper.
February was also an exceptional twenty-eight day period of time because it has been designated as Black History Month, affording us the opportunity to learn about and honor the lives of so many outstanding and influential members of our society, so many of whom I didn’t know beforehand. I loved discussing with Brody and Cooper who they had been learning about in school during that. And then of course there was President’s Day … today a combined Monday holiday that when I was a kid was broken up into two separate holidays … Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and that of George Washington. I think I remember having two days off from school in February.
And last but surely not least was Valentine’s Day, commemorated by the sharing of romantic dinners and the giving and receiving on special gifts. But because February had also been designated as American Heart Health Month, we should hope that the romantic dinners wouldn’t have included French Fries, cheeseburgers, fettuccini Alfredo, or ice cream sundaes, and the gifts would be something like a gym membership or a Yoga mat.
And so, as you can see, in my search for Yontifs, I actually had very little problem coming up with a slew of wonderful reasons why I could enjoy lifting a glass on almost any day of the month … red wine of course for heart health.
Ellyn Laub is a contributing columnist residing in Coconut Creek.
