In my house, we celebrated Jewish and Christian holidays. We went to Passover Seders and hunted for Easter eggs. We had Christmas and Hanukkah. Sometimes, they got a little mixed up. When we stole the Afikoman, it was ransomed back for a Jerusalem Cross. We hung a Star of David on our Christmas tree. But that didn’t make anything less special. If anything, it was more.
Every year, we loved lighting the menorah and watching the candles burn down. My sister and I would bet on which ones would go out, and we could sit at the table for ages, watching them to see who “won.”
But there was one time we didn’t watch carefully enough.
My house was a zoo. Cats, dogs, hermit crabs, whatever. We loved them. And the cats, in particular, loved the holidays. They would eagerly wait for dropped food or extra attention. And one of them, affectionately called “Brim,” loved Hanukkah. Well, he loved the candles in the menorah, anyway.
One night, once my sister and I had fought over which colored candles went in which spots, we got distracted while waiting to see which candle burned down first. Brim, however, saw it as his one chance for kitty cat glory and rushed the menorah. I’m not entirely sure what his intent was, but somehow I doubt that he got what he wanted. Perhaps he wanted a closer examination of the Hanukkah miracle that we were re-enacting. Instead, he got flaming whiskers.
A poofing sound, a cat rearing back, and next thing we knew, we could smell singed fur and the cat was short a faceful of whiskers.
I’d love to say that our cats learned their lesson from Brim’s whisker fiasco, but in future years, we had another cat set his tail on fire and try to light the dining room, and we had a different cat chew through the Christmas tree lights. But those are stories for another holiday.