“It’s not Hanukkah without almost lighting the curtains on fire~” [it's her, Queenie is the one almost lighting shit on fire, change my mind]
@magiiqueen hanukkah starters, accepting
Admittedly, Hanukkah wasn’t a holiday Tina favored. When she was younger, Purim had been her favorite. She’d insisted their mother tell her the story of Esther and had pretended to dress up as her more times than she’d like to admit. Porpentina was a stuffy name, but Esther had made her feel as brave a queen as she felt her younger sister was. Of course, their parents had died and the childlike innocence that had loved Purim shifted to a solemn respect for Yom Kippur. Even while at Ilvermorny she always had a yahrzeit candle and said the mourner’s kaddish, though when she’d started it had seemed fuzzy and odd. Now it remained the one holiday she requested off, happily filling in for Christmas for any others.
It had never been that she didn’t feel Jewish– Her Jewishness was something she held dear, a reminder of parents she lost and the tiny traditions they had. She tried her best to make it home on Friday evenings for Shabbat dinner with Queenie. And if she was lucky on Saturday mornings she might go to shul. But it was always if she was lucky– Her work had always come first as caring for her sister and herself remained her priority. Besides, she was a witch– she would never consider herself deeply religiously Jewish.
And yet she stuck to tradition. The first year after she graduated Ilvermorny she hardly stopped to blink and allowed holidays to pass (short of Yom Kippur). It wasn’t until her sister had joined her a year later that she’d pulled our menorahs and anything else. And it wasn’t until around then that Hanukkah changed in America– It was hard not to notice. The no-maj Jews were putting more stock into it. It became less a minor holiday and more in the forefront, but for a woman as no-nonsense as Tina she paid little mind to the newer additions of the holiday.
Even now, the third night of Hanukkah and the first time she properly made it home in time to light her menorah (keeping to a tradition of each in the family having their own). The last two nights she’d pulled late shifts and hadn’t made it in the dusk hours to do so. It wasn’t uncommon these days, with the tense air, to be out well past midnight. But given she’d worked a week straight the director had all but insisted she go home early and have the next day off. She was fine with that, her stomach growling for traditional foods.
She’d picked up some sufganiyot on the way home (a benefit of living near one of the Jewish quarters). Queenie would likely want to make more, she knew, but she couldn’t pass them up with a rumbling stomach and had hardly made it half way down the street before pressing one of the soft and still warm donuts into her mouth.
When she’s trudged up the stairs she could smell Queenie cooking– No surprise there and she had half the mind to wonder if she played some influence in getting her out early (Tina may not have cared about the apparent revitalization of Hanukkah short of, well, food but Queenie seemed more taken to it– Perhaps because she was a winter child). She trudged the stairs with her treats to the humming of her sister on the other side of the door. Shaking her head fondly to herself she pushed open the door to their small brownstone with little more to-do than a greeting and fussing with the coat rack.
“I grabbed something more on the way home,” She noted as she placed the container on the table, noting the potatoes being prepped on the table, “need any help with the latkes?” It’s a quick addition– Tina’s hurried way of getting settled in at home. Queenie was always better at the brisket when they had it, but Tina’d gotten the handle on stews and kugels long ago (she claimed that food she could eat in bulk if she wanted simply faired better– but she had enjoyed helping their mother make them as a child).
The words continued slipping from her tongue as she pushed the longsleeve of her blouse up, dark eyes taking stock of the room as she searched for her menorah. Not above the fireplace where she usually chose to put it– She continued her search until she finds it, sitting delicately on one side of the window across from Queenie’s. She stops in her search when she notes a suspiciously blackened part of the curtain near her sister’s.
“Queenie,” She started in a breath. It’s not the first time her sister’s managed as much and given her practically sing-song voice behind her the older can’t resist rolling her eyes. She moves forward, plucking her own up from the window to return it to the mantle, “that doesn’t look like an almost. I can almost swear you just like to watch things burn, honestly.” It’s half-hearted humor, her lips forming into an amused half-quirk of a smile.
“One year I’m gonna come home to this whole place up in flames,” She jests, fingers curling behind her hair to tuck a strand away before she turned to her sister, “or you could stop insisting on putting it in the window.” The very fact that Queenie’s managed to singe curtains more than once was why Tina was too apprehensive to leave her own in the window. Though at this point it’d become something more of a running joke than anything serious.
A huff of a breath and she circles around he table to go for a pan as she hums out a sound, “You’ll be happy to know I’ve got tomorrow off. Though something tells me you already knew that one.” Which meant, though she harbored the thought in the corner of her mind, she could manage to get Queenie’s present like she wanted. She might not follow the “eight days of presents” thing others did but she never had.
She knew most didn’t do elaborate things, but being orphans they’d always been lucky to get one or two things. And after her first year out of school, well, Tina’d admit she went a little overboard buying her sister what she wanted on her Auror trainee salary. It’d been worth it then, but Tina had always been a modest gift giver– something significant, but small was her style. And she’d had her eye on something for weeks though work had been far too busy.
The elder cast a look out of the corner of her eye before adding, “Anything you wanted to do?” If there was one thing she’d give the no-majs new insistence of the holiday it was spending time with family which she, woefully, knew she hadn’t managed much with Queenie lately on.
