âItâs not Hanukkah without almost lighting the curtains on fire~â [it's her, Queenie is the one almost lighting shit on fire, change my mind]
@magiiqueen hanukkah starters, accepting
Admittedly, Hanukkah wasnât a holiday Tina favored. When she was younger, Purim had been her favorite. Sheâd insisted their mother tell her the story of Esther and had pretended to dress up as her more times than sheâd 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 mournerâs kaddish, though when sheâd 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 didnât feel Jewishâ 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 luckyâ Her work had always come first as caring for her sister and herself remained her priority. Besides, she was a witchâ 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 wasnât until her sister had joined her a year later that sheâd pulled our menorahs and anything else. And it wasnât until around then that Hanukkah changed in Americaâ 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 sheâd pulled late shifts and hadnât made it in the dusk hours to do so. It wasnât uncommon these days, with the tense air, to be out well past midnight. But given sheâd 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.
Sheâd 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 couldnât 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 sheâs trudged up the stairs she could smell Queenie cookingâ 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 itâ 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.
âI grabbed something more on the way home,â She noted as she placed the container on the table, noting the potatoes being prepped on the table, âneed any help with the latkes?â Itâs a quick additionâ Tinaâs hurried way of getting settled in at home. Queenie was always better at the brisket when they had it, but Tinaâd gotten the handle on stews and kugels long ago (she claimed that food she could eat in bulk if she wanted simply faired betterâ 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 itâ She continued her search until she finds it, sitting delicately on one side of the window across from Queenieâs. She stops in her search when she notes a suspiciously blackened part of the curtain near her sisterâs.
âQueenie,â She started in a breath. Itâs not the first time her sisterâs managed as much and given her practically sing-song voice behind her the older canât resist rolling her eyes. She moves forward, plucking her own up from the window to return it to the mantle, âthat doesnât look like an almost. I can almost swear you just like to watch things burn, honestly.â Itâs half-hearted humor, her lips forming into an amused half-quirk of a smile.
âOne year Iâm gonna come home to this whole place up in flames,â She jests, fingers curling behind her hair to tuck a strand away before she turned to her sister, âor you could stop insisting on putting it in the window.â The very fact that Queenieâs managed to singe curtains more than once was why Tina was too apprehensive to leave her own in the window. Though at this point itâd 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, âYouâll be happy to know Iâve got tomorrow off. Though something tells me you already knew that one.â Which meant, though she harbored the thought in the corner of her mind, she could manage to get Queenieâs present like she wanted. She might not follow the âeight days of presentsâ thing others did but she never had.
 She knew most didnât do elaborate things, but being orphans theyâd always been lucky to get one or two things. And after her first year out of school, well, Tinaâd admit she went a little overboard buying her sister what she wanted on her Auror trainee salary. Itâd been worth it then, but Tina had always been a modest gift giverâ something significant, but small was her style. And sheâd 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, âAnything you wanted to do?â If there was one thing sheâd give the no-majs new insistence of the holiday it was spending time with family which she, woefully, knew she hadnât managed much with Queenie lately on.
