by Jody Comins, Development and Events Coordinator 
Preparation Time: 1 month
Shopping Time: 3 days, 6 stores (plus 1 more because we forgot something)
Cooking Time: 4 days
Ingredients: Favorite Thanksgiving food, Favorite Chanukah Food, Menorah, Candles, Gifts, Family, and Friends
Step 1: My parents call to tell us they won’t be hosting Thanksgiving this year because they’ve decided to stay in Florida.
Step 2: We realize we have to host and invite my sister and friends and assign food for them to make and bring.
Step 3: My children pore through our recipe books and decide to make corn bread, kugel, sweet potato and apple salad, latkes, applesauce, green beans, banana bread and coffee cake.
Step 4: I look at all the recipes, make shopping lists for Market Basket, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, the Russian Produce Market, etc and make a schedule for cooking all the foods in Step 3.
Step 5: Lots of fun cooking and prepping, last minute run to the store for the forgotten fried onions.
Step 6: My husband gets up early to smoke the turkey. Guests arrive at 1. Football games are watched. Candlelighting at 3:55. Exchange of gifts, 4:00. Dinner at 5. Skype with parents over dessert at 7. Kids watch movies in the basement until midnight. Nieces sleep over.
Step 7: Fall into bed with full bellies, exhausted, grateful and happy that we had such a wonderful day with our children, my sister, our nieces and dear friends.
Sound familiar?
I hope that all of our Mayyim Hayyim community had a joyful, light-filled, sticky fingered from sufganiyot (jelly donuts) Chanukah/Thanksgiving.
Jody Comins is the Development and Events Coordinator at Mayyim Hayyim and treats each family holiday like an event. Lists and planning and lots of details!