Moonie’s cool friend Renee threw a Scrabblekah party – billed as “the ninth annual mashup of everyone’s favorite word game and the Jewish holiday of fried goodness” – last night. Those things sounded great to Moonie! He got into the pre-party spirit by pulling out his little dreidel and singing every verse of the dreidel song.

Twice.

Then, of course, he had to choose the perfect hostess gift in addition to my boring ol’ wine. Nothing says “I love you” when you’re Moonie like the gift of cookies. Especially if they’re shaped like dreidels and menorahs.

He also found these yummy chocolate-covered Hanukkah-themed Oreos for Renee. But I had to keep an eye on them; he kept trying to sneak one.

Moonie looked a little nervous when we parked in front of Renee’s next-door neighbor’s house, which sported a front lawn full of, among other characters, no less than three lit Santas. (“How do we know which one is the real Santa?” Moonie whispered. “None of them are the real Santa. He’s busy wrapping gifts,” I whispered back.) But Moonie got a lot happier when we walked up to Renee’s house and found Rabbi Snowman, sporting a very shiny beard and a festive Torah, and a giant lit menorah. (“Now THIS is a party!” Moonie whispered.)

Renee had made a big gold dreidel, which hung outside the back door. “Ooh!” Moonie exclaimed, eyes gleaming. “So shiny!”

Inside, he was delighted at this big sign Renee had made to decorate one whole wall.

It didn’t take Moonie long to locate his friend Dan Baldwin, who was wearing a black sportcoat with a shiny red inside. “Can I ride in your coat?” Moonie asked, drawn to the shiny redness. So that’s how he spent part of the night.

Another part of the night was spent topping our friend Jennifer Jane’s hat, known locally, maybe even regionally, as “The J.J. Hat.” Moonie enjoyed his navigation atop this famous hat! There were lots of delighted shouts of “wee!” coming from his corner of the room.

Renee, with Jennifer Jane’s help, paused to explain a bit about Hanukkah and a bit about the various food dishes laid out on the table. Jennifer Jane looks REALLY excited about helping to sing the blessings.

This must have been the part where Arsenio Hall helped keep the one night’s worth of oil burning for eight nights?

Boy oh boy, once the menorah candles were lit, no one could keep Moonie back from those deviled eggs.

Or the homemade latkes with apple sauce.

He found Renee’s stash of gelt and was pretty happy with his discovery.

And a nice man mentioned that he’d brought these pieces of shiny chocolate back from Switzerland. “You can taste the Swiss!” Moonie yelled.

We were each handed Hanukkah-themed stickers to wear, from “I love you a latke” to “Beautiful festival of lights.” The stickers were too big for Moonie, so Moonie’s friend Don worked really, really hard to cut out a little Star of David sticker for Moonie to sport. He was thrilled with his little star sticker!

Our friend Susi had brought these amazing Hannukah cupcakes (“Hannukupcakes,” Moonie informed me knowingly). I kept finding my nude little dude inside the box, enjoying his surroundings.

I coaxed him out and got him to come join some of us in the other room. Moonie eagerly climbed into a dish of fun dreidels. He had to show everyone within hearing distance that he knew the dreidel song. (Twice.)

When he wasn’t singing or wolfing down Hannukupcakes, Moonie helped me and our friend Jennifer K. play Scrabble against three other teams. But if the letters don’t spell C-O-O-K-I-E-S or C-U-P-C-A-K-E, Moonie’s little mind wanders. Towards cookies and cupcakes.

At the end of our fun evening, Moonie had a little trouble saying goodbye to our friend Elaine. Partly because he kept wanting to hug her, and partly because he wanted to help her eat that cannoli.

Someone is looking forward to Scrabblekah X!