#holiday-overlays

#holiday-overlays

'It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown!' is a great family movie that includes funny callbacks between Linus and Sally about the Great Pumpkin.

My dad would be up at dawn, not to prepare some elaborate feast, but to set up the treasure hunt he'd created using clues written on the backs of old envelopes. Each riddle led us kids to another spot in the house, building anticipation for modest gifts hidden in creative places. The whole thing probably cost him nothing but time and imagination, yet thirty years later, I remember those hunts more vividly than any expensive present I've ever received.

There's something about the holiday season that makes us all feel like kids again. Maybe it's the crisp air, the smell of pine, or the anticipation of gathering with loved ones. For me, though, it's the lights. Those twinkling, shimmering displays that transform ordinary streets into something magical. Across America, entire towns take this tradition seriously, turning themselves into winter wonderlands that draw visitors from all over the world.

It was less than 24 hours after the news of a horrifying attack at a similar Menorah lighting in Sydney's Bondi Beach reverberated around the globe when Menlo Park's Jewish community gathered in Fremont Park to light the Menorah. Together, those assembled had the victims across the ocean in mind and prayed for them to find healing and comfort. The message of the Menorah has always been the resilience of light, and its message could not have been more relevant for a day which bore such difficult news.