“Daddy, look what I found!” E exclaimed.
I’d just walked into the apartment after teaching Hebrew school that morning. Our plans for a family Hanukkah party in the afternoon had been canceled since S woke up with a fever, but that didn’t stop E from discovering the towers of wrapped gifts that T and I had hidden under the table behind the couch. He ran over to the table as I came in and pointed excitedly at the various shapes that were no longer covered by the towel.
“Mommy told me you didn’t put the presents there but I don’t think I believe her. It was really you two, right?” he asked.
E has known for a while that Santa Claus doesn’t visit our house; T and I laid that idea to rest a couple of years ago when he started asking about the heavyset man in the red and white coat at the mall. But we never really discussed any parallel figure who comes to bring presents to the Jewish boys and girls.
His eyebrow was raised high with skepticism and his lips pursed as he waited for an answer. His tone of voice said that he didn’t believe us for a second, but I caught a twinkle in his eye that said that maybe, just maybe, something magical had happened.
I glanced at T before answering. She had arrived home a few minutes before me and had just finished getting changed into more comfortable clothes. She was smiling expectantly at me, waiting for me to support the story she had started spinning for E.
“Wait, what presents?” I asked.
E looked confused for a moment and pointed at the floor next to him.
“Over here! There are all these presents here. Didn’t you and Mommy put them here?”
I grinned and walked across the room, shooting a surreptitious wink toward T as I passed her. I stopped next to E, saw the gifts behind the couch and feigned astonishment.
“Where did those come from?” I asked.
“Daddy,” E said, rolling his eyes with the expert skill of a teenager, “I know it was you.”
“Wasn’t me,” I answered with a shrug. “I think I’d have remembered wrapping all those presents and stashing them back there.”
“It’s true, E,” T chimed in. “Daddy isn’t very good at wrapping presents. The last time he went to wrap a present, he put the gift down so hard that he ripped the paper right in the middle.”
E’s eyebrows rose again.
“I think you guys are just messing with me,” he said, but I could tell his resolve was weakening.
“It must have been Hanukkah Harry,” I said. “He must have stopped by while we were all out this morning and put those presents there for you and S.”
I didn’t have many options for a person associated with a Jewish holiday that could have planted the gifts. Elijah the Prophet is usually the go-to in these situations but he plays more of a role at Passover. I thought of Judah Maccabee, the leader of the Jewish army in the Hanukkah story, but his strength and stealth were more useful in defeating the Syrian Greeks than in depositing presents in the homes of Jewish children. I ended up opting for the old Saturday Night Live character, though I’ll admit I even briefly considered the Friends holiday armadillo.
T and I maintained our commitment to the story for the rest of the day and through the rest of the holiday. E still wasn’t completely sold on the idea of a bearded man in a blue suit and a black hat coming into our home and stowing presents under a table behind a couch but we never cracked. E saw us clearly looking for specific gifts to give to him and S on particular nights and used it as evidence that we must have known what gifts were there in advance. We played it off, though, by saying that Hanukkah Harry had given us a secret list beforehand so we would know what E and S were supposed to get each night.
I’m not sure we ever fully convinced E that Hanukkah Harry was real or that his presents had appeared by magic (aside from the magic of credit cards, of course). He knew, for instance that certain presents were from T and me and that others were from his grandparents, even though we never said specifically how each gift arrived at our apartment.
I’m not sure it matters, either way. Hanukkah, at its core, commemorates a military victory over a much larger foe. The rabbis incorporated the story of the miracle of the oil later on so that future Jews would be able to focus their attention more on God and prayer than on our people winning a war. We are not fighting the Syrian Greeks today and we may have shifted from oil to candles to keep our menorahs and hanukkiot lit. But we are still working to ensure that our traditions continue and that our children appreciate their connection to ritual, their family and their history. If we can succeed in that goal, then T and I will have truly achieved something magical.
