The End of Another Hanukkah Celebration
Had I not been moving furniture around my house last night, I would have lit the final nine candles indicating the beginning of the last day of Hanukkah 2015. If you’re wondering why nine and not eight, suffice it to say that there’s an extra candle each night. So I was busy and completely forgot to do that. And with today’s sunset, Hanukkah has ended.
On this last day of the “Jewish Festival of Lights,” I spent the day in Chapel Hill, NC at a performance testing center. That’s one of those places where they put you on a treadmill and make you breath into a tube which measures everything from oxygen consumption to halitosis. Well, maybe not the latter, but definitely the former. This was a gift to myself: to become a better triathlete. I’ll find out the results later in the week.
Looking back, I realize that the one ingredient missing from my Hanukkah celebration this year, and most every year, is extended family. I don’t have a big family tradition for Hanukkah, but my sister does throw a mean party on the last night, which was – wait for it – last night. But she didn’t throw it far enough for me to catch it. She lives 2500 miles to the West. Enough said about that. Now on to my promise.
Why Is This Holiday Like Triathlon?
This blog is primarily about triathlon and endurance sport, so I promised that I would tie that in to my Hanukkah commentaries on day eight and here we are: day eight. There’s really not much in common between the two. Maybe someone could come up with a good punch line to the question, “What do triathlon and Hanukkah have in common?” Not much, really. However, I do have to work on losing several pounds from eating the celebratory foods cooked in oil.
Maybe the answer is endurance: eight days for one holiday is an endurance event in itself!
In reality, these last several blogs have just been my way of saying Happy Holidays to the world. May you enjoy all the warm fuzzies and peace on earth that this time of year brings.