There are so many familiar symbols associated with Christmas: It's a Wonderful Life on TV, carols on the radio, and red-and-green colored kitsch on sale as early as October. Complaining about the commercialization of the holiday season is a tradition almost as old as the holiday itself - until now.

An Oxfam store (wait, why has Oxfam been in the news lately?) in Leeds, England, recently felt the fury of a "grinch" who was upset that the store is already selling Christmas cards and other items, even though it's only August. The charity store was one of several who recieved threatening notes from a group calling themselves The Movement for the Containment of Christmas." The store's locks were superglued shut, and the note read as follows:

This is a very polite but very serious reminder not to display Xmas cards until 1st November.

We will put superglue into your locks if you do.

Peace and goodwill.

Of course, the employees of the Oxfam store feel afraid for their lives and have gotten the police involved.

I wonder... would Jews do this to people who tried to celebrate Hanukkah ahead of schedule? Would they put superglue in the locks of stores that sold bread products during Passover?

Regardless, I'm on Team Grinch for this one. It's August, y'all.

Meredith L. Jacob's: Modern Jewish Mom's Guide to ShabbatHello there thirty-is-the-new-twentysomething! That's right, I'm talking to you. Do you have a friend, sibling, cousin, or co-worker who recently procreated? Perhaps a girlfriend with a young family who could use a kid-friendly, modern guide to Shabbat? You do? Just as I expected. Well, here's something to consider: Mother's Day doesn't only have to be about your own mom. If you're looking for a gift to let the young moms in your life know you appreciate how hard they're working, consider Meredith L. Jacob's The Modern Jewish Mom's Guide to Shabbat. In addition to thoughtful and creative guidance on how to prepare the house, the table, and the family, Jacobs offers projects, recipes, and summaries of the weekly Torah portions with family discussion questions. There's even a chapter on how to keep Shabbat interesting and meaningful for teenagers.

If you're in search of a last minute gift for your own mother this Sunday, here are a couple of foolproof ideas:

Sabon: means 'soap' in hebrewJewcers in New York, Boston, Chicago, New Jersey, Toronto, or Montreal should seriously consider making a visit to Sabon, an amazing bath and body company that was founded in Israel in 1997. Their lotions, massage oils, soaps, cleansers, and serums combine aromatherapy oils, Dead Sea extracts, herbs, and flowers from the Israeli countryside. In addition to delicious products that are stylishly packaged, Sabon's soaps are made on an agricultural co-operative Moshav in Northern Israel, they use boxes made from recycled materials and fully biodegradable packing material, they never test on animals, and they support Dead Sea conservation via Friends of The Earth. US and Canada locations can be found here. Sabon also has an Israeli site.

ahava: as close as mud gets to loveFor those who can't get to a Sabon storefront, Ahava is another good bet for Mother's Day. Described as the "only cosmetics enterprise indigenous to the Dead Sea region," their rich, mineral-based products are available all over the world. Any number of their cleansing, exfoliating, hydrating, and nourishing solutions would be a welcome offering. For more traditional moms, try something along the lines of the Mineral Body Lotion or hand and foot creams. For more adventurous mamas, pick up a tube of the Energizing Body Mud Mask with fresh essences of mandarin & cedarwood.

God in the Wilderness: by the Adventure RabbiReform Rabbi Jamie Korngold, AKA The Adventure Rabbi, has made quite a name for herself in the past seven years. In 2001 she started the hugely successful Adventure Rabbi program, which seeks to bring "Jews back into communal religious life through innovative religious programs which combine the outdoors and Jewish practice."

Her first book, out just this past week, is called God in the Wilderness: Rediscovering the Spirituality of the Great Outdoors with the Adventure Rabbi. A celebration of and guide to the divinity inherent in the natural world, the book was designed to fit easily into a backpack or pocket. With chapters like "Cultivate the Patience to See Burning Bushes" and "Restore Your Soul Beside Still Waters," it's a must have at only $9.56 from Amazon.

You can read the first chapter here.

Previously: The Passover Box of Questions

Letters Of Creation: handmade in israel by netaOnce you're strutting your stuff in a pair of Natalie Portman-designed shoes, you'll want to add a little bling to the outfit. Might we suggest a piece of jewelry from Israeli designer Neta Yehiely? A graduate of the Omanit Art Academy, Yehiely does everything from engagement rings and sets to casual, "spiritual" pieces.

I'm especially fond of her handmade, sterling silver "Letters of Creation" necklace, which you can pick up at Modern Tribe for $72. From MT: "This sterling silver necklace pendant has the 10 Hebrew letters of creation. In the tradition of Kabbalah, G-d is said to have created the world with the Hebrew alphabet."

Check out Neta's entire gallery here.

Pick up a pair of shoes from the 2008 Spring Natalie Portman Collection here.

Have a tip on a great product? Let us know!

My son, now you are a man: The WiiWelcome to Mommyblogging Dearest, your guide to Jewish parenting online -- hipster and otherwise.

What thirteen-year-olds want: Eternal popularity, to be left alone, and the Nintendo Wii. What you should get them for their B’Nai Mitzvot, however, is anybody’s guess. This is that rare parenting issue that’s totally relevant to non-parents as well: People with teenage children definitely get invited to more Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, but anyone with Jewish relatives eventually winds up in Barnes and Noble the night before a big event, wondering if The Catcher in the Rye is a horribly pedantic thing to give a budding adolescent.

This is, of course, why gift certificates exist, but how much should you give? Over in the forums section of Modern Jewish Mom, posters seem torn between $36 and $200. The latter, of course, has the advantage of being twice 18, which is a lucky number in Jewish superstition. Then again, $200 has the advantage of being 2/3 of the price of a Wii.

B’Nai Mitzvot always wind up being a disturbing mix of consumerism and tradition, so perhaps it’s not a surprise that elsewhere in the same forum is a heartfelt plea from a mom whose child has announced that she’s not interested in studying for her Bat Mitzvah and she doesn’t care about Judaism. It’s an old question, but also an eternal one. Shouldn’t the ritual mean something to the kid?

Relax: She's a mannequin.My younger brother informed me I no longer "dress cool". I protested, of course, as his primary reasoning to say such a thing is that I'm surely too old to have any cool shirts anymore. (Well, maybe if you'd visit once in a while, you'd know bettah, child, hello? Heh.) Anyway. So, primarily to prove my brother wrong, but also to hook you up with a few good deals in the process, I bring you t-shirts.

We all know about Rabbi's Daughters, yes? Tush pants, bubbeleh t-shirts? Yeah, them. Well, feeling the festival of lights nearly upon us, they're giving away "Oy Vey" belt buckles on orders over $50. That's fun. And cool. (Speaking of t-shirts. I saw a woman not terribly long ago wearing this extra-funny shirt and I chased the poor woman only to find out she couldn't recall where she'd gotten it. Never fear, though, I found her Feygeleh Hag t-shirt from Shalom Shirts.) Anyway, if you're into the Rock Star shirt (uh, or the porn star one... or the "Jews do it for 8 nights" one) over at That's Jewtastic, knock yourself out and score a few for friends because you get free shipping on orders over $36, or "double chai when you buy" as they so cleverly say. (And if you send them photos of yourself in their tzotch, they'll hook you up with a little store credit, too.) Not quite as great of a shipping deal, but a deal in any case, hit JewTees and dig their Manischewitz Gets Me Crunked shirt (Imagine that. Spellcheck doesn't recognize Manischewitz or Crunked. Who would have guessed?), or (the one I'm partial to) the Mensch shirt. Wait, that's kind of wholesome. Is that one not cool? Naw, it's always cool to be menschy. Anyway. Pick up five and they'll schlep it to you for free. This shirt, while no deal is attached, per se, is pretty great. If only it came bedazzled, then it'd be cool. (Kidding, I'm a kidder. Oy.) Oh, and the coolest Jewciest shirts (and other bits of fabulousness) around are, of course, right up in here on Jewcy.

At age 16, I underwent the onomastic equivalent of a nose job: I legally changed my name. I had always hated “Lois,” a matronly moniker redolent of great aunts and baggy support hose. With the exception of Brenda Starr, it was also the worst possible name for a girl thinking of becoming a journalist.

Wanting an androgynous byline I chose “Leigh,” a variant spelling of my initials (L.E.E.) But Leigh was also a hat-tip to Leigh Hunt, the 19th century essayist, poet, convicted seditionist, and purported inspiration for the insidious Harold Skimpole of Bleak House. I liked Hunt for, among other things, his meditation on the authorial use of pronouns and the cynical essay “Rules for Newspaper Editors.” His verse is endearingly bad in the manner of Longfellow’s: “Abu Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)/Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace.” It requires a brillo pad to scrub that out of your brain.

Hanff's Lesson: Why should you wander aimlessly around Barnes and Noble, picking out the books with the prettiest covers, if you can make the search more interesting?I owe my relationship with Hunt—not to mention my relationships with Lawrence Sterne, Samuel Pepys and other writers not on academia’s A-list—to Helene Hanff. An impoverished New York television writer with esoteric intellectual appetites, Hanff in 1949 began corresponding with the staff of a small London bookshop called Marks & Co. Over 20 years, their trans-Atlantic colloquy ranged over matters literary (the inadequacies of Richard Burton’s translation of Catallus), practical (instructions for the preparation of Yorkshire pudding) and personal (marriage, death, dental work). In 1973, Hanff published the letters in a book called 84, Charing Cross Road.

The book, a quest narrative in which a Jewish Galahad with catholic tastes zealously pursues obscure and out-of-print grails, influenced my life in several ways. As noted, Hanff indirectly suggested my name. More profoundly, she showed me the difference between merely reading, and living a reading life.

Before 84, Charing Cross Road I had consumed books the way most children do: browsing the shelves for intriguing titles or following the advice of friends and teachers. My school and local libraries were well stocked, and we lived near a large Brentano’s. Good books found me. It was their destiny. Hanff knew better.

Reviewers and fans of 84, Charing Cross Road invariably treat it as a love story: seven centuries of English literature stand in for the hunk. In 1987 the book was made into a movie, one of those BBC-yawners in which Anthony Hopkins is nominally roused from asexual torpor by a spunky, literate woman not impossibly more glamorous than most members of the audience. But while the Marks & Co. contingent has its charms, 84, Charing Cross Road is chiefly a character study of the author. Hanff emerges as loudly opinionated, personal boundary-less, acerbic, generous, funny. Reading the book at the emotionally inchoate age of 13, I imagined she was lonely. I wanted to know her. And budding egotist that I was, I wanted her to know me and to be enriched by our friendship.

84, Charing Cross Road is not about love but about longing: Hanff’s longing for the authors who gave her sustenance. “I am a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here….” she introduces herself in a letter dated October 1949. “I enclose a list of my most pressing problems.” And for Hanff these books—or rather the lack of them—were truly pressing problems, more so than such nuisances as intermittent joblessness and eviction.

Reading 84, Charing Cross Road for the first time, I compared Hanff’s tenacity to my own passivity. And I was shamed. Determined to stalk more exotic prey, I copied into a notebook every author and title mentioned in the letters and went in search. My parents’ bookshelves yielded Tristram Shandy and The Compleat Angler which I read, loving the Sterne, sort of liking the Walton. I also looked up used bookstores in my neighborhood and consulted the classifieds in my parents’ magazines for stores in other cities. I started writing letters.

Over the years I would hunt down more than a hundred titles, most of them gleaned from other authors. The more obscure the book and delayed the gratification the better. My nonpareil of elusion was Death’s Jest Book by Thomas Lovell Beddoes, a 19th century re-imagining of Renaissance revenge tragedies that was still on the list when I finally junked the notebook—by then a thing of threads and patches--in the late ’80s.

The Rarer the Better: The pursuit of obscure titles is a stimulating extracurricular activity for any good Jewish nerd. I eventually tracked down every one of the two-dozen or so volumes mentioned by Hanff, many of which bored me. That’s not surprising. She and I lack an obvious “People who bought this also bought” bond. Irreconcilably, Hanff disliked fiction (Jane Austen excepted) while I like fiction almost exclusively. Still, in memoirs and the amorphous belles lettres category I found her taste unerring. And even when the quarry proved disappointing, I never regretted the hunt.

Today, of course, the Internet has made such hunts obsolete. Searches are conducted in minutes not in years; the only constraints on immediate procurement are financial. Sure I appreciate the convenience. But always to own is never to yearn. It’s been years since I felt my heart skip upon discovering some rare-to-the-point-of-seeming-mythical volume among the miscellany of a second-hand bookstore, or packed in a crate of cellophane wrapped best-sellers at a library book sale (where I memorably brought to ground James Stephens’ Crock of Gold and Christopher Morley’s Parnassus on Wheels).

There are 17 copies of Death’s Jest Book available new and used on Amazon starting at $14.22. I bought one a few weeks ago. It’s a good book but, alas, no longer an end in itself.

I Heart Buying StuffHells yeah, it’s all coming together today. The front page of Thursday Styles brings it on home in the lead story about chain-boutique owner Stefani Greenfield, her business partner Uzi Ben-Abraham, and their ideal customer, Tarynne Goldenberg! (Love the double-“n” “e”, btw! Verrrry classy!)

What do all of these folks have in common (with Cindy Chupak, too)? Hint: it’s not just a fabulous wardrobe!

Jewish American Princess Syndrome is fairly understandable in its social, political, cultural context. Of course there would be a generation of American Jews who were unbelievably excited and overwhelmed by its own capability for material transcendence! Of course they would place enormous value in things and things and more things! Of course they would get their noses broken and scraped out, their hair dyed and straightened and thinned, their nails done and redone, their wardrobes obsessively flushed every season, their oh-so-Jewy body-hair waxed clear away!

Right, so a generation of spoiled little Brenda Patimkins resulted. The safety and prosperity and equal-opportunity-ness of America, replete with its near-religious reverence for the Almighty dollar, equals materialistic frenzy. But this giddy semitic shamelessness about assimilating, about owning and having and buying and having and having and having was supposed to time out about, oh, forty years ago.

Yet we now find ourselves one, two, even three generations removed from said JAP heydey, the organic Jewish American Princess zietgiest, and JAPiness remains ever present, blossoming, spreading its wings to encompass persistent generations of brainless mallrats of every vague cultural Jewish persuasion. (Just ask my sister-in-law!)

And you know what? There is absolutely no excuse for JAPiness in the 21st century. None.

Amazing irony points, however, to Ms. Greenfield, whose comments about her new flagship store inadvertently echo Herzl:

“We need a home to show the world who we really are.”

I’ve been called a self-hating Jew shockingly often this past year. But reading today’s Style section it hit me! Let it be said: I’m not a self-hater; I’m an other-hater. I like myself. It’s those horrid JAPs at Intermix I can’t stand.

With the digestion of yesterday's holiday turkey and the consumption of this morning's leftover pumpkin pie...

Comes the biggest shopping day of the year. 

Yes, millions of Jews hit the stores this morning for the massive blowout pre-Chanukah sales.  And you were among them.  So now, muzak renditions of all your fave Hebrew melodies are ringing in your ears and blue and white wrapping paper is peeking out of every drawer in your house... right?  You took your kids to get a picture taken with Judah Maccabee, and you all ate pre-fab latkes in the food court.

No? 

Hmm......

Yesterday, listening to a (non-Jewish) family member talk about her plans to hit the stores at 5 AM today (!!!!???) to get a jump start on her Xmas list, I found myself thinking about how we can, as Jews, keep ourselves from getting pulled into the consumer insanity of Christmas.  Because so often, what little content-based/ religious/philosophical relationship we have with this winter gift-giving holiday disappears in a flurry of Christmas comparisons.

It seems that decade by decade, for many of us, Chanukah recedes a little further into the mist. 

So I thought to offer a cautionary note today.

STOP!  Think about what you want Chanukah to be in your home.  Figure out ways to make it more than greasy food and enough crap to keep your kids from feeling bad about "not getting Christmas." 

I'm asking for advice now... from readers.  How do you "do" Chanukah in a meaningful way?  Besides a few minutes of candlelighting and non-Santa wrapping paper, what makes it a real holiday for you?  What do you remember from childhood?

How can we keep it a Jewish holiday?

My few thoughts on the matter are these:

1. Rigidly observe the time when your candles are lit as family time.  No TV, video games, running off to talk on the phone. If you live with roommates, do something with them. If you have kids, play a game or read together. Make this time matter!

2. Buy gifts (if you're going to buy gifts) that build a sense of Jewish life (whatever that means to you).  Books that make people think.  Obects made in Israel.  Art.  Tickets to a (cool) Jewishy theatery thing. Donations to really awesome non-profits.  Games that will bring the family together. A trip to someplace amazing, something that connects your family to Jewish history/heritage even.  Lessons for music or dance or whatever is a good fit.  (I don't just mean old-peopleJudaica and boring holocaust books-- DAD!)

3. Get out the photo albums and recap your own family history, in some loose connection with the story of Chanukah. 

4. Dig into the "real history of Chanukah"  Learn about the Maccabees, and about what the fuck was happening in Israel back then. It's gruesome and interesting and political.

5. Cook together.  Spend time in the kitchen as a family. I don't know why, but for me, these are the best moments from my childhood.... me and my sibs burning latkes together... the house filling with smoke. Somehow, the burning is as much a part of it as the eating. I'm not sure why.

In coming weeks, I'll be sharing some of the most interesting / meaningful Chanukah traditions and stories I can find... but in the meantime, let's talk about practical celebrations... What about you?  What's the best part of the holiday for you?