The Sher Family Celebrity Hanukkah
and why it's good to give the gift of health
The local news station KFVS came to our home every year. They loved showing the diversity of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and they needed our family to show that, even though 99.9% of people in Cape were excited for Christmas, there was one family psyched for Hanukkah. We were the jews of Cape Girardeau. They had many options for their big Hanukkah celebration. It was either us or us.
It was the Sher family’s Super Bowl. We came home early from school, the house was spotless (even the cleaning lady came an extra day), and we had our fancy Hanukkah sweaters picked out. We were all set. It was the same playbook every year. They filmed my brother (the only Rabbi ever to come out of Cape) lighting the menorah (my parents convinced me that if I had that candle there was a 50/50 chance the whole house would be set on fire). Then they would go to commercial break, we would open our gifts and we would say to our parents “Happy Hanukkah Mom and Dad!” They would cut to our parents smiling and then back to the newsroom where they would announce that tonight is the first night of Hanukkah and the Sher family of Cape Girardeau is celebrating the Festival of Lights. They would then put up an 80s menorah with Happy Hanukkah on it.
When they finished we would give each other high fives. I would tell my brother he crushed the impressive candle menorah lighting and he would respond that I was perfect on the synchronized line “Happy Hanukkah Mom and Dad!” Shit went down when I turned 6. I wasn’t the greatest little kid, actually, I was horrible. My mom always took the blame for the disaster of 1981 but underneath it all everyone knew it was Gabriel's fault. The day of the big taping we were all rushed and obviously my mom wasn't thinking. She grabbed a random gift, more like a day 7 or 8 of Hanukkah gifts. Hanukkah gifts always start strong, a Sno-Cone machine, a Rubik’s cube, but when you get to day 6 they become a sports or animal eraser, a pen with 6 colors, a box of Big League Chew.
My mom’s fault that year was that her presents weren’t labeled. She accidentally grabbed a math computer hangman game for our computer. I hated the computer and only my brother geeked out with his really very very odd computer tutor named Leonard.
This gift shouldn’t have been a Hanukkah gift. This should have been “Hey Gabriel, work on this math computer hangman game and we’ll buy a slurpee and some more Big League Chew.”
Everything seemed to be going smoothly. My brother did the lighting of the menorah perfectly and they came back from commercial break and we began to open our presents. Right when I saw what my gift was, my fake Cape Girardeau celebrity Festival of Lights brain stopped working and I felt the blood rush to my face.
I grabbed the Apple 2+ math computer hangman game and threw it as hard as I could at my dad. It zoomed right at him (I had a good arm) but he had put his hands up making sure to block the disc (he knew me well) and it scooted across the shag carpet. Seconds later you could see me running up the stairs crying and screaming "This isn’t what I wanted!”
My parents were devastated. Gabriel blew it and I was never going to hear the end of it. Gabriel, this was our family's special moment, this was our Super Bowl, this was something we all looked forward to every year. My brother rolled his eyes, sighed, and tilted his head back and forth. I had let everyone down, even Cape Girardeau.
That whole year I was really sad that the Sher family's celebrity Hanukkah was going to be cancelled because I couldn’t handle a day 7 math computer hangman game. It was devastating. But on December 1st 1982, KFVS called and said they had made a group decision and planned on coming for this year's Hanukkah taping. Just one change this year, it won't be live but taped. The Sher Family was Back!!!
So this year if you don’t want a math computer hangman game thrown at you, buy the gift of Acupuncture. Give a gift that will change someone’s life and lead them toward a life of balance and good health.