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Saturday, December 20, 2008

Circle Time: The Show and Tell Weekly Thread

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid's dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let's begin.

During my sophomore year of college, I started going abroad--usually to Europe--once a year. Most of the time, I was meeting someone over there that I knew and for some reason, they believed that I would enjoy hanging out in a Jewish section of town rather than experience the other 99.9% of the city. Fine, fine, I actually really enjoyed attending shul in Rome and hanging out at the Jewish nursing home in Oslo. But still--I'm not sure it was really necessary to walk several miles to see a sign in Hebrew that a friend found in Barcelona.

With that first trip, I started purchasing a dreidel wherever I went. I don't really love Chanukkah but dreidels are small and inexpensive and can be thrown into a sock at the bottom of a bag and make it back to America in one piece. So we now have this incredibly large dreidel collection (most of the unbreakable ones have the commandeered by the ChickieNob and hidden around the house in small nooks that she refers to as her "snuvs"--I have only found two of her snuvs therefore, I'm not entirely sure where most of the dreidels are currently hidden).

Below are three of my favourites. The metal one is a gift from a friend who brought it back from Jerusalem (people know that I collect dreidels so I now end up with one when friends travel as well). The blue one in the center comes from Venice, Italy from the island of Murano. I ended up with this dreidel because while we were in a store, I spun a huge glass dreidel to show my friend how they work and it ended up spinning off the shelf and bounced off four cardboard boxes until it hit the floor completely in tact. Everyone in the store was silent and staring at me and I was so embarrassed that I picked it off the floor, grabbed that blue dreidel and said, "I'd like to buy this, please." The last dreidel also comes from Israel and it is the one I purchased instead of the "one that got away"--a gorgeous metal dreidel that opened up like a locket. When I returned to the store, it was gone. I purchased this one because I loved the font used for the letters. And it says "nes gadol ha'ya po" (a great miracle happened here) instead of "nes gadol ha'ya sham" (a great miracle happened there) as all dreidels do outside of Israel.


What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (hint: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog's name, not your name). The list is open from now until late Tuesday night and a new one is posted every week.

Other People Standing at the Head of the Class:

1. Weebles Wobblog
2. Smiling Scar
3. Life After Infertility & Loss
4. Momofonefornow
5. Infertility Podcast & Blog
6. Roses Daughter
7. The Fertile Infertile/Kristin
8. WiseGuy
9. In Due Time
10. Kristin (kekis)
11. An Unwanted Path
12. Ginalou
13. Life and Times of Me!
14. Emily (Apron Strings)
15. Cara
16. Queenie
17. Delenn
18. Baby Smiling In Back Seat
19. The Steadfast Warrior
20. cara (parenting after loss)
21. Dora @ ISO the Golden Egg
22. I Want To Be A Mommy
23. Relaxing Doesn't Make Babies
24.
You're next!




Want to bring something to Show and Tell?
  • If you would like to join circle time and show something to the class, simply post each Saturday night (or earlier in the week or on Monday if you can't do the weekend), hopefully including a picture if possible, and telling us about your item. It can be anything--a photo from a trip, a picture of the dress you bought this week, a random image from an old yearbook showing a person you miss. It doesn't need to contain a picture if you can't get a picture--you can simply tell a story about a single item. The list opens every Saturday night and closes on Tuesday night.
  • You must mention Show and Tell and include a link back to this post in your post so people can find the rest of the class. This spreads new readership around through the list. This is now required.
  • Label your post "Show and Tell" each week and then come back here and add the permalink for the post via the Mr. Linky feature (not your blog's main url--use the permalink for your specific Show and Tell post).
  • Oh, and then the point is that you click through all of your classmates and see what they are showing this week. And everyone loves a good "ooooh" and "aaaah" and to be queen (or king) of the playground for five minutes so leave them a comment if you can.
  • Did you post a link and now it's missing?: I reserve the right to delete any links that are not leading to a Show and Tell post or are the blogging equivalent of a spitball.

28 comments:

luna said...

very cool. love the tell!

Smiling said...

I love your show and tell. I love it when I get to see something new (no one else could possibly have taken that photo) and learn something I didn't know (I never would have guess that they'd have different words on them based on whether you were in Isreal or not).

Ta!

Lori Lavender Luz said...

If I read your blog long enough (which I totally plan to) I will eventually speak Hebrew.

I didn't know there was a difference between Promised Land dreiels and the merely Hnted-at Land dreidels.

So, how was the nursing home?

momofonefornow said...

Those are so beautiful.

Malky B. said...

Beautiful dreidels. Rivky loves to collect them as well. We add a new one each year.

JuliaS said...

Wow - those are really neat!

I love the ChickieNob and her "snuvs"!

Jamie said...

What a beautiful collection! I love how different they all can be when finding them all over the world.

Anonymous said...

Hey, this is my first time with show and tell! This is cool!

In Due Time said...

Very cool Melissa! I shared my tree. Tis the season!

Kristin (kekis) said...

I think "a miracle happened here" is even more meaningful than the other.

Now that school is out for a couple of weeks (and I don't do Show & Tell with my class!), I'm finally back for Show & Tell here.

AnotherDreamer said...

Those are very pretty. I really love the metal one, and the blue one :)

GINA and KEV said...

This is my first show and tell too. I love the idea and plan to do it again next week. On second thought, it took me all day to think of something to share, so planning to show and tell again in a week might be a bit of a lofty goal for me at this point.

Sam said...

what fab looking driedels! By the way, I managed to find time this morning to add my blog to your linky!! (please ignore last night's email!!)

Erin said...

They are lovely! I remember being in Venice and so scared in the glass stores. We came home with a glass block that looks like an aquarium!

ICLW!

Lisa said...

Beautiful! I always wished I collected dreidels, but, somehow I have ended up with a mini collection of about 10 menorahs!

Emily (Apron Strings) said...

What an awesome story ... and perfect for this week!

Cara said...

Mel - your stories always make we want to hop a plane...somewhere! Hershey...mmm that was good.

Gorgeous momentos!

Petrucia said...

I love the dreidels. They are so beautiful. And I could totally see the entire movie moment of the store in Murano where you got the blue one. What a great way to remember a trip. :)

Delenn said...

Nice collection. I love the story about the blue one...so often that is how things are bought in my house.

Baby Smiling In Back Seat said...

The metal one is gorgeous, but it's strange that it's not 4-sided.

Do they all spin equally well? Among a few other mostly boring dreidels, I have a cute handmade dreidel that someone gave me (dreidel dreidel dreidel, she made it out of clay) but it doesn't spin well and doesn't fall equally on all 4 sides.

I have done a similar thing with menorim, but less consistently (not every city has a menorah worth buying, plus we've been to more cities than we have doorways). It is fun to walk around the house and see a couple from Italy (also murano glass, though we got it in Florence instead of Venice), a couple from Amsterdam, a couple from DH's bubbie's house, one that was a wedding gift, etc. We still have a couple of doorways left, so I'm still on the lookout every time we visit a shul in a new city.

Oh, the one that got away! I have been there myself, more than once. Sometimes I think that the lesson to seize the moment is more valuable than the actual object would have been.

Echloe said...

Beautiful dreidels. I only actually seen the really crappy paper ones that they give you in elementary school. I was always jealous that the Jewish kids got 8 days of gifts and cool toys like dreidels. Because yes, I thought the paper ones were cool.

ICLW

Beautiful Mess said...

Oh those are cool! So don't touch anything breakable in stores unless I want to buy them? That's the message I got..
Enjoy your day!
Hugs,
-D*ICLW*

battynurse said...

Those are beautiful. I also got a kick out of the missing ones that chickienob has hidden. How cute.

Anonymous said...

What a great idea for a collection! I love that ChickiNob has "snuvs," that is too cute.

Barb said...

Wow. Those are GORGEOUS! What a great thing to collect!

Madge said...

This is a cool idea.

You have a great site, and I have an award waiting for you at my blog! If you'd like to come pick it up, please do! Thanks for all the work you do to help educate others in this sensitive area!

CappyPrincess said...

Wow, I didn't realize (in my blind little corner of the world) that dreidels came in such varieties. And I appreciate knowing there is a difference between dreidels in and out of Israel. What a great show and tell!

Billy said...

Beautiful dreidels! And a lovely idea for a collection :-).

You know for me a wow is a dreidel with a "nes kadol ha'ya sham" on it..