It’s been a few days since Chanukah 2020 came to a close. In our home, the holiday isn’t really over until (1) everyone’s gifts have been put away, and (2) all the wax has been cleaned off the menorah. (Life hack: Shove menorah in the freezer. Remove hours later. Snap wax off. Easy peasy.)

This year was the first year our son Cielo could truly get into the season, and that made it all the more meaningful for me and my husband. At three years old, he could now count candles, sing songs, and anticipate presents. (Cielo: “I have always wanted that!” Dad: “Do you know what it is?” Cielo: “Nope.”) We did our best to maintain the traditions from my childhood while, hopefully, organically, creating some new ones of our own. Overall—despite the pandemic and its limitations—the time we spent was hands-down lovely.

Still, as a dad who has been steadily navigating the holidays and, specifically, the gift giving, there were some things that just didn’t sit right. Time to ponder some peeves.

The 5 Things that Got My Dreidel Spinning the Opposite Way this Season …

Chanukah gelt has fallen victim to inflation. When I was a child, each yellow mesh bag of choco-currency contained five coins. Now, they contain only three. Is this what they mean by bitcoin? Sure, the chocolate is still pretty awful, but I gotta ask, why such small portions?
Threepence, none the wiser. Cielo indulges in his gelt.
Toy manufacturers that include a glossy brochure of their other toys/sets/models in the box of the one you’ve already purchased ought to be fined. Every time Cielo would turn to one of these “books”—innocently looking for instructions—he would immediately become bewitched by what he didn’t have rather than remain excited about what was right in front of him. Criminal.
New house rule: Open everything ahead of time. De-paper. Keep the focus.
Also, a hard pass from me, moving forward: toy assembly times that are longer than my toddler’s attention span—heck, toy assembly times that are longer than my attention span. Our eighth-night wing-dinger of a present—The Big One—took me 50 minutes to put together. That’s five minutes longer than the directions said it might take.
A decent proposal: Manufacturers must clearly mark the assembly minutes on the front box of any toy that comes with parts and requires a Phillips screwdriver. Like a letter grade in the window of a restaurant, a bold and uniform metric can let caregivers know, at a glance, if they are wiling to take the risk.
Enough with only white characters in picture books. I have written a bit about this before “What’s Your Toy Story?”, but as a dad of a Latino boy, I will never not be thrown by this. Cielo was lovingly gifted a Frosty the Snowman story and sticker book this Chanukah. I was excited to sing the song with him and introduce him to the story. After all, this winter will also be Cielo’s first foray into the snow, and I can recall being totally enchanted by the Frosty tale when I was a kid building snow people.
Well, the book’s illustrations feature six children, and all of them are white. All of them. It’s not until you get to the stickers in the back that you find one additional child with brown skin. And he is, no joke, the only child whose face also happens to be half-covered by a winter scarf.
I don’t care that the source material is from 1969. Update your drawings, publishers!
Not OK: Frosty the Snowman’s All White Christmas
And I hate to say it, but I am having issues with those beloved Mr. Men and Little Miss Books. I adored these as a a kid. And was eager to introduce them to Cielo. He was generously gifted two box sets this Chanukah, and we have been quick to dig in. Cielo likes “spotting” Walter the worm in each book, a la Waldo, more than he does the narratives right now.
Still, I struggle with exposing him to some of the problematic “Mr.” core values. The books tell us that (1) women are to be called Little Miss, while men are to be called Mr; (2) a plus-sized person with a strong appetite is actually Greedy; and (3) you are as the world sees you—quite narrowly—and with a heavy dose of confirmation bias. That we are better off pegging people as one thing or another; it’s easier to manage expectations that way. Of course, Little Miss Dotty got it wrong … that’s her thing! This is definitely not how Brandon and I would model complexity, growth, and empathy. Excited, then, to now read these books and flip them as teachable moments!
Why must a big belly signify greed?
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The 5 Things that Got My Dreidel Spinning the…