This year's party started a year in advance when I decided to host a Hallmark Hannukah Movie Bingo watching party.
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I started gathering decor items before my last party last year partly because I had to buy stuff for my work, and then I decided, since I got a lot of things and the anti semitism started to rise in the city and around the world so I thought it was a good idea to put out positivity about a Jewish Holiday and educated while having fun.
This is what I do for my work. When I plan monthly social events, I try to add purpose and make it about something more than a fun event so that it has more meaning.
Little did I know that a year later, after I hosted my party and on the 1st night of Hanukkah that there would be a mass tragedy at Bondi Beach in Australia while people were on the beach celebrating the 1st Night of Hanukkah. It's unbelievable that people would destroy so many families over a religion or a race-based hatred. It really saddens me to see how hate has spread throughout the world, and its only getting worse.
I am sending love and light to the families affected by the horrible anti-semitic behaviours of a couple of people who want to eliminate the Jewish people. If it were reversed, there would be outrage. But nothing changes. I pray that one day these terrorists understand that their behaviours have destroyed generations of people who could possibly save the life of someone in their own family or invent something that changes the world.
So while I am horrified, I want to put some good out about the successful party that I was able to have a couple of weeks ago.
A couple of my friends who usually come to my annual party were unable to come, one because of surgery, and the other one, I'm not quite sure why, and hope that it's not because I changed the theme to a Hanukkah theme. It wasn't meant to preach or be religious, but to share some customs like the food and the games.
This year, I invited my best friend, who was the only other Jewish person, so he was a bit of a teacher, which he is in real life, so he was able to answer questions and demonstrate a few things.
I could not have hosted this party without him this year. It literally started last year when he took me to his dollar store, where we were able to get all kinds of Hanukkah things. It's in a predominantly Jewish area, where my area is now changed to mostly Asian. I have been picking up things along the way over the year, and we got more stuff from the same dollar store this year.
He also offered to pick up the best bagels from Bagel House on Avenue Road. These bagels are one of the best in Toronto and for sure in the area. He also offered to bring and make fresh Latkes so that he could show my friend Julie, who was really interested in learning, because her son loves Latkes. She isn't much of a cook and isn't Jewish, but she was eager to learn everything and experience everything we did.
My friend Adam brought everything to make the latkes, even eggs.
When everyone arrived, we first set up the Bagel Bar in the kitchen with all the schmears, bagels, and other toppings. My friend Joanne picked up a huge amount of Smoked Salmon from Diana's seafood in Scarborough. It was so good. Once we finished with the bagels, which everyone devoured, and left me with one lonely bagel for my breakfast the next day. We had a dozen and 6 people. My friend Joanne had a bit of a stomach virus, so she had to take it easy; otherwise, she would have loaded up on the bagels for sure.
After the bagels, we had the Matzo Ball soup I made. Joanne was very happy about that for her stomach.
That was simmering on the stove so they could go for refills if they wanted. I had a huge amount left, so I think they were saving their appetites for the bagels and latkes.
Once the kitchen counter was cleared, Adam set up the latke factory. Julie was his student and assistant, and I left them to it to make many batches of latkes. We didn't have applesauce, but I made sure I got sour cream. Adam likes to have them with sugar.
While they were in the kitchen frying up the latkes, we started decorating some stars and dreidel shortbread cookies that I had made. I had blue and white icing and blue and white sprinkles, and sugar.
We then did our Gift Exchange, and it seemed like everyone got the perfect gift for the person that received it. It was chosen by questions they pulled from a bag. I asked everyone to either get something funny or food-related. Some were both.
We hardly watched the Hallmark movie because we were so busy. Unfortunately, there weren't any Hanukkah movies on that day. We tried to set up the Night before Christmas when we started, but that never got finished.
The last thing we did was Hanukkah Bingo. A game Adam found at his dollar store. Usually we do it based on the movies, but it takes longer that way. This was a quick game, so we played twice. It was educational at the same time.
My friend Lisa brought her brother, who lives in Elmira, and was visiting for the weekend. He was so excited to come. So instead of a girls' day, it was more mixed this year. Everyone got on like a house on fire, and even Lisa's brother Grant only met me once and didn't know the rest of them, but he got along great with everyone.
This is how I want to see the world. Like a Hallmark Movie Party with different themes every year, that is inclusive and full of light and fun.
The real world is a scary place these days, so I was glad that I could literally light it up for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon.
Some of the extra things I added for this year's party were Hanukkah fuzzy socks with menorahs on them for everyone. Everyone also got a clear dreidel with Hanukkah gelt in it. And they got to pick a spinning mini dreidel to keep. I also had the option to get a cashmere scarf because I couldn't get t-shirts this year. Only a couple of them chose the scarves for our photo. And they got to take home the cookies that they decorated in a blue snowflake tin that I gave everyone at the start of the party. A couple of other little things and a Hanukkah card were added to the sparkly blue gift bag.
My friend Norma was still rehabilitating in a hospital, so Julie brought her a gift bag and some of the cookies everyone had decorated.
It wasn't a cheap party and turned out to be a lot more than I originally planned because when I thought of it, I thought we could go to What a Bagel and have lunch, then come over for the movie afterward, but sadly, they closed down. And a year later, a new Denny's opened in its place this weekend. So that possibility was off the table, and that's where the Bagel buffet came into play.
All in all, because we skipped the cookie exchange and added the fun gifts, and had to clean up as we went to make space so the clean up afterward was easier than usual. I still had things to clean the next day. The pot from the soup, and I also had apple cider simmering on the stove. I had made my fruit waters. One was blueberry and lemon, and the other was blood orange. I put a big silver bowl outside with all the soft drinks to keep cool, and keep the space in the fridge for the bagel stuff.
I had loads of snacks, but they were so full they didn't really touch any.
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Adam also brought 2 kinds of Sufganyot, which are Hanukkah donuts stuffed with jelly or chocolate. He also made some rugelach, which were like cinnamon buns. So he pretty much brought most of the food everyone ate. He likes to go overboard, but everyone appreciated it.
Julie and Lisa forgot stuff at my house, so I brought Lisa to work the day after, and Julie came back to pick hers up, and I gave her the leftover donuts for her ride back downtown.
Other than Adam, my friends are not Jewish, and they had so much fun this year. I think even more than we usually have because there was no time to get bored.
So I hope this story inspires you to host something different and incorporate things like I did for my party.
I decided the theme last year, but the more the year went on, the more important it was to cancel all the hatred that had increased toward Jewish people in this city. There are only about 1% of Jewish people, but here they receive the most amount of anti-semitic violence. It makes me really sad to see how much it has increased since COVID, and I hope something changes because it's not acceptable in a Country like Canada.
This is a long post, but it turned into more than a story about my annual Hallmark party, and I hope that it means something to you while you read it.
I don't know what the theme will be next year. My first thought was Gingerbread, but I'm going to wait and see what's happening in the world next year and decide then.
It's about fun and not trying to cancel out hatred in the world.
OY TO THE WORLD!
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