And so this is Christma-Hanukkah

And what have we done? Well, apparently sending out a Hanukkah card instead of an all-purpose "Season's Greetings" one this year has effectively ended our relationship with my in-laws, who are practicing Jehovah's Witnesses.

It's so unbearably sad, but as a friend noted, many people consumed by a religion eventually cut off their families to bow to what they truly believe is a greater good. The notion that a loving God would tear families apart in this life to attain Nirvana in the next is a concept I'll never swallow, but that gives me, and eventually my 5-year-old girls, small comfort when they next venture to ask when they'll see their grandparents again.

So, after digesting this bit of holiday cheer via a terse phone call on Christmas Day/Hanukkah Eve, we packed up the kiddos, the menorah, the gifts and some mittens and headed out to Montauk, Long Island for a brief holiday week respite.

F's artsy photo of the beach from Montauk Point seems more appropriate to this post than the sweet one of the girls with the Lighthouse in the background (that's in the Flickr box), although the mood was far from somber, what with the two healthy kindergarteners racing around the Point on boulders the size of small buildings, the unseasonally warm wind at their back and getting caught up in the notion that we were "explorers" on an adventure.

Still, it's strangely appropriate that in light of recent events, we traveled to a place on the Eastern seaboard that's nicknamed "The End" since at its easternmost point it juts out into the Atlantic Ocean on three sides, causing terrific winds, beautiful waves, and a sunset that takes your breath away.

For even if my in-laws finally realize they miss F, me and their grandchildren too much to stay away, this experience closed a 10-year chapter in my life that began the day I met their son. And things can never be the same again.