To me, Hanukkah has always been about hope. The story of the oil that shouldn’t have lasted, but did anyway, reminds me that things we think are impossible happen anyway. As I light each candle and the flames burst into light against the dark backdrop of the winter night, I can feel hope welling up inside. The final night, when all the flames dance because of the surrounding heat and grow even higher, is the most beautiful resonating symbol of hope I have ever seen.

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Erin Levy is a sophomore at Beloit College in Beloit, Wis. She was born and raised in Lawrence, Kan., where the Jewish population is quite small, though  larger than her high school graduating class of 17. She’s a movie buff who also enjoys watching television shows on DVD. (And she wishes the Fox show Firefly had never been canceled.)

Erin is a guest illustrator for This Ordinary Day’s Sunday Specials. If you would like to participate in Sunday Specials, please click here.

Oh, Christmas morning. The wonder. The surprise. The anticipation of finding out what presents await you under the tree. Yeah, not so much.

In my book, presents were fair game once they hit the carpet under the tree. I would shake, smell, weigh or measure those little mystery packages until I was certain of the treasure concealed inside. My parents, not to be outwitted by a child, would try to throw me off with weighted boxes or packages wrapped in small boxes within bigger boxes. Much to their chagrin, my curiosity and determination were no match for their red herrings. To make it worse, I would also sniff out my older brother’s gifts and tell him what he was getting. The real joy every Christmas morning did not come from receiving gifts, but in telling my brother, “I told you that’s what was in that box!”

One year my parents decided to teach me a little lesson in humility. They wrapped all of my presents, and those of my brothers, in the same wrapping paper. They were all the same size. They smelled the same. They felt the same. Each and every gift we had under the tree was identical.

My mind went through all the possibilities, trying to figure out this new level of deception. I made my predictions, albeit without the confidence of previous years. When the big day finally arrived, my parents offered to let us open our gifts first. We tore into them with a newfound excitement and genuine wonder. We unwrapped our identical packages to discover our first gift was…. tighty whities?

I unceremoniously mumbled, “Uh, thanks.” I was convinced this was part of their plan, giving us a crappy gift to lower our expectations before we unwrapped the other packages to discover our real gifts. Nope. Unwrapping the second package revealed… more tighty whities. Same size. Same color. Good ol’ Fruit of the Loom.

I was not amused. I made no attempts to pretend I was happy. My poor brother, not seeing their ploy as I did, tried his best to look surprised and happy. His efforts became strained after packages three and four revealed themselves as, you guessed it, more underwear. Yet, being the big-hearted sweetie that he is, brother kept a smile on his face and thanked my parents after each unwrapping.

This was more than I could take. “This is crap! Julie and Katy got brand new bikes and cool clothes. Dad, you got an expensive watch. Mom’s got new jewelry. I get tighty whities!? ” Oh no no no.

My parents smiled. “Is that not what you had guessed were in the packages?” I stomped out of the living room and headed toward the trampoline in the back yard to cool off. I walked outside and found two brand new BMX bikes were parked in the yard. A few other packages were strewn across the top of the trampoline. Despite being a 7 year-old who knew all there was to know in the world, I had been completely duped by the oldest Christmas misdirection in the book.

The photo illustration below is my little brother Evin, re-enacting scenes from my foolish childhood “investigative tactics” even though he is not so young, or little.

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Whether or not you snuck a peek, we hope you got exactly what you were hoping for this holiday season.

From our hearts to yours, merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah and much holiday cheer.

Keep dreaming, keep seeking and keep believing that every day is special.

— The This Ordinary Day writers

I love Christmas. When I was a child, it was because I liked receiving and opening gifts. I was consumed with unwrapping and immediately putting to use my presents. If it required assembling, I would spend the rest of the day piecing it together perfectly. For electronic equipment, I would read the user’s guide to discover all of the cool, “hidden” features. But it was always about me. Nary a thought was given to others and their gifts, or even how my enjoyment of my gifts could bring joy to the ones who gave it to me.

That is what I began to discover as I grew up. I started enjoying seeking out gifts that family members and friends would enjoy. A well thought-out gift can mean so much, and I have grown to love the process of finding the “perfect” gift.

One of my prouder gift giving moments was a few years ago. It was a particularly tough year because my parents’ house had caught fire in early December. Not only were they displaced from their home, but they had lost most of their possessions as a result of smoke damage from the fire. My mom was especially disappointed about losing all of the sentimental things from mine and my siblings’ childhoods, including a book called The Velveteen Rabbit.

It’s a heart-warming tale of a toy rabbit who becomes “real” because the boy loves him so much, and mom used to read it to all of us as kids. One day, as I was perusing Barnes & Noble, I found a brand new copy of the book, along with an audio CD of Meryl Streep reading the story (the original book mom bought had a cassette tape of this reading). It was perfect, and even though I had already bought her something else, I knew she would love it. It was a home run.

But there is still one problem. I always wait until the last minute.

Maybe it is a function of me being a male, or maybe I am just too much of a perfectionist. I don’t know. But every year, I find myself in the same predicament, and this year is no different. As I write this, it is four days until Christmas, and I still have to buy gifts for three of my family members. I have already purchased my sister’s gift. I actually did that months ago, ironically. It just seemed so perfect for her that I went ahead and pulled the trigger, even though it was August.

So how do I make Christmas purchases in August, yet still manage to not have my shopping finished within days of the big event? And why am I sitting here writing about finishing my Christmas shopping instead of going out and actually making it happen? I think it’s because I am always expecting some sort of gift revelation. Not necessarily from the person for whom I am buying the gift, but simply having an idea spring forth as a result of knowing the person well. Like The Velveteen Rabbit.

Regardless of when they are purchased, it is always fun to give a good gift. Whether in the warmth of August or the chill of December, it’s the thought behind the gift that makes it special. And while I would love to be able to give you more of my thoughts, I have some Christmas shopping to do.

I winced when I saw the weather forecast in The Denver Post for Sunday: a high of 22 degrees. As an upstate New York native, I can handle my negative wind chills with the best of them, but that first bitterly cold day of the season is always a little rough.

Sunday was the kind of cold when, as you step outside, your brain stays warm by simplifying your mental process to one thought: Don’t lose a finger. Or an earlobe. It was a chill that made you understand the term “biting” means. It, essentially, was a temperature that should only be allowed when it’s on the Celsius scale. (“Six degrees outside? I’m wearing my spring coat!”)

But, bitter cold or not, I had agreed to go caroling on Sunday with some people from a coworker’s church. This particular coworker, Ken, has a way of making me feel absolutely adored whenever I see him, so it’s pretty easy for him to get me to do whatever he wants. And, I have a not-so-secret longing for the days when people wore heavy woolen suits and dresses and fur muffs and carried candles and went a-wassailing from door to door. (My life is distinctly lacking in the wassail department.)

Not only was Sunday cold, but it had snowed. I’m like a kid when it snows, generally — I want to go outside and make snowmen and have snowball fights and go sledding and then go inside and drink lots of hot chocolate and eat cookies, or just skip the outdoors part and get straight to the cocoa and sweets. But now, as a grown-up, that’s tempered by dread of shoveling and cleaning off my car and clutching my steering wheel as my Jetta swerves through the unplowed streets of Denver.

So Sunday became a strangely busy day at the awkward, slow pace that snow and cold creates. I rushed to get ready for church in the morning, then drove slowly, nervously, to get to choir practice on time. I rushed out the door of church to get home and have lunch, then cursed the snowplows of Denver as I drove down Speer Boulevard, a pretty major street, which remained unplowed and covered in slick, icy slush. I relaxed to watch It’s a Wonderful Life for the first time with my boyfriend, then repeated the clutch-the-steering-wheel routine as I drove to get to Episcopal services followed by caroling.

I sang at the Advent service at the church and joined the small congregation in their common area for some chili afterward. I had asked Ken earlier, “By caroling, do you mean…outside?” In this effing COLD weather? my brain continued, warm and lazy from the chili. He said we’d only go around the block. Then he started handing out Santa hats.

The layering process began, and everyone swelled to twice their normal size as they put on puffy jackets, scarves, mittens and hats over which the Santa hats were crammed. Ken conscripted me to hand out books of carols (did I mention he can get me to do whatever he wants?), and we headed out into the brittle, cold night.

We sang to an empty house — no luck — for our first attempt and then managed to get a couple to come outside for a round of Here We Come A-Wassailing. They even looked happy, and as we finished, they invited all 12 or so of us inside to get warm.

“We just started,” Ken said. “We’re still working off the warmth.”

Next we approached a pair of high-rise apartment buildings across the street from one another. We picked Joy to the World and started singing; I was happy that we had selected something that I could sing harmony for. As we sang, the cold air seemed to allow our voices to slice up between the tall buildings, echoing, and face after face began to appear from balconies strung with Christmas lights.

I sang next to the keyboardist at the church, who has a stunning baritone, and grinned up at the faces peeking over in surprise at the 12 Santas shivering and singing in the snow below them. Some snapped pictures.

As we finished, the people applauded and some yelled “Merry Christmas!” And though my fingertips were going numb and my cheeks stung, I could yell it back, and mean it.

I admit I have a gruff demeanor. This helps when shifty characters eye me as a potential target on a dark street, but not in 98 percent of normal human interactions. More than once I’ve learned people were reluctant to approach me. In high school, a girl used to classify the numerous guys named “John” by her opinion of them. I was “Scary John.”

So it should go without saying people are usually surprised I have a pet rabbit. He was adopted, taken from a girl who did not know what to do with him. When I was growing up, my family never turned down the chance to take care of an animal. After living amongst horses, parrots, dogs, fish, barnyard animals and numerous rodents, another rabbit felt nostalgic.

His name is Frank and to everyone else he’s the cutest thing they’ve ever seen. To me, he’s a real son of a bitch. He’s Lector to my Starling, Moriarty to my Holmes. I have an archenemy, and he stands less than a foot off the ground.

It didn’t use to be this way. Frank and I got along just fine until recently, and he led a fairly privileged life.

Like most house rabbits, Frank is litter box trained. He craps in his corner and has free run of the house. He eats pellets for breakfast and lettuce for dinner. He enjoys being petted and will get anxious if you do not rub his head for long periods of time. When I need to find him, I just shake a box of treats and he comes running like it was the dinner bell.

Life with Frank was pretty cut and dry. You fed him on the regular hours and simply sat back while he entertained himself. Occasionally, I’d take him out for visits to the park. On Easter, young children and parents fawned over him like he was a newborn. At night, he quietly munched his hay and slept until the dawn broke. Frank’s life was perfect. He slept peacefully with the knowledge he was the king of the house, his own personal warren.

Then the puppy came, and Frank’s life went to hell.

The puppy chased Frank as if he were another puppy. He barked and nipped as Frank hopped away. He walked into Frank’s cage and tried to eat the cedar litter. A lot of effort was put into making sure the puppy was never malicious, but I don’t think Frank saw it that way. In his mind, he had been replaced. His reign had ended.

To look a bunny in the face is to stare at a disgruntled old man. Their mouths naturally turn down and thus they always appear to be frowning. After enduring the shock of the new puppy, that grimace was now just being honest. And so began Frank’s revenge.

Frank learned that he was only safe from the puppy in a handful of places, mostly under cabinets and behind furniture. Because the puppy could also fit into the rabbit cage, Frank began spending most of his time behind the sofa. It seemed OK until one day I heard the unmistakable sound of incisors on wood.

I pulled back the sofa to see the furry little bastard scamper away. His fleeting hop had the look of guilt written all over it, so I wasn’t surprised to see deep tooth marks all along the baseboard molding. He had torn the paint and the wood from more than a dozen small patches.

To counter his chewing, cayenne pepper was applied to the wall. I coated the areas he had chewed as well as the fresh spots. On his first attempt, Frank inspected the spicy baseboard and immediately licked it. After he got his fill of pepper, he resumed chewing on the wood. I yelled and this time, by instinct, he hopped out from behind the sofa and back to his cage. Apparently, rabbits have no taste buds.

After the spice revelation, I turned to soap. I rubbed a bar of Ivory on the baseboards. I smothered them with flaky white wax and dared Frank to try to eat this stuff. At first, he seemed deterred. He sniffed and prodded but did not put his mouth on the soapy molding. For several days he quietly relaxed behind the sofa and under the entertainment center.

I was pleased, but hesitated to claim victory and with good reason. I’ve learned no animal gives up easily. For a while, I basked in the silence that accompanies well-behaved pets. The puppy was not barking, and the rabbit wasn’t destroying the house. I wondered if they had learned tolerance.

Then I heard it. I thought it was something else, a noise outside or on the television, but it was Frank. He was gnawing on the wood. I craned my neck around the sofa just to witness it in person. There he was, chomping his fluffy jowls. He looked at me in mid-chew, paused, and turned back to the baseboard for soapy seconds.

For anyone dreading a forthcoming paragraph that deals with tragically burying a bunny who died from soap poisoning, fear not. This rabbit has Superman’s colon. In his three years under my watch, he has devoured chocolate and rubber bands, apples, magazines, ice cream, pizza and plastic pieces of all types. One night I awoke on the couch to find all of the remotes had been vandalized. The little shit chewed every rubber button off.

To this day, I have yet to witness Frank lose a wink of sleep over the crap he’s eaten. My only defense is to make sure no food finds its way to the floor and to keep the remotes well hidden.

With the soap failure behind me, I realized I had to end temptation. Frank spent several days locked in his cage. He gnawed on the bars and voiced his displeasure by urinating and defecating outside his litter box. When I finally let him out, he promptly hopped behind the sofa and began chewing on the wood. I yelled. The puppy barked. The rabbit ran. This was bunny retribution.

Things were getting ridiculous, and desperate times called for desperate action. Grabbing my tool bucket, I lugged the array of discount carpentry gadgets into the living room. After quickly sizing up the situation, the crowbar seemed most appropriate, so I took it to the baseboard. I pulled and yanked and ripped the goddamn thing off the wall, leaving a nice, unpainted section of drywall. The section crashed to the floor as dust hung in the air. Frank came over and sniffed his departed lover. He genuinely seemed befuddled. I hurled the mangled piece into the backyard alongside other scraps of wood and wiped the paint chips from my arms, resting with a smug look on my face.

The loss of the molding solved one piece of the puzzle. Frank continued to shit everywhere but learned he couldn’t chew on baseboard that wasn’t there.

A few days later I was watching TV and I heard it again. I tore back the sofa as a little powder puff of a tail disappeared into the far corner of the living room. He had torn a hole in the drywall and was now destroying that. The dust and paint were crumbled in a small pile under his spot. In the shadows of some corner, I could tell he was mocking me. This was war.

In honor of the declaration, I brought out my weapons of mass destruction: hammer, nails, circular saw, level, caulk gun. I cut large plywood strips and nailed them in place of the baseboard. The hideous things stood out like nun in whorehouse, and in hindsight, it might have been better to just leave the original molding in place. I bought several litter boxes and filled the bottom of the rabbit cage with them. When some would not fit, they were torn in two and seamed together with bathroom caulk and a lighter. My actions were swift and methodical, like a cougar in the throes of an attack. Anyone coming into contact to me at that time would have witnessed a man on the edge, a man pushed there by a creature with the brain the size of walnut. My eyes were wild and my heart raced as if injected with epinephrine. It was a strange time and I cannot recall much of it, almost like a repressed memory.

I slapped the repairs together in a whirlwind of lunatic craftsmanship. The house bore little resemblance to its previous form. The walls were disfigured, the rabbit cage lay full of litter boxes and I had plugged every hole leading to the back of the sofa as possible. In addition, I placed several pieces of wood around the cage and in the living room for Frank to abuse at will. To aid him, a strip of carpet was placed along the smooth hardwood floors so he could freely move from chomping block to chomping block. I had turned the living room into a rabbit amusement park.

A week or so has passed and Frank is still a son of a bitch. I keep an eye and ear on him at all times, hopeful that the changes have inspired him. Speak of the devil. As I write, there’s a clicking and I turn around to see his small nails furiously connecting with the hardwood as he desperately tries to leap from his cage to a small cardboard box I set up for him. He is chewing less, but is finding alternate outlets for his oral fury, such as the fireplace bricks or wrapped Christmas presents. The many litter boxes have helped however, and they ensure that I know where he decides to squat.

A moment passes and a very low crunch emerges from the box he just scrambled into. He’s found the treats I left him. I turn away from the living room and back to the television. The solitude is momentary as a blur of brown charges into my sight. Below my perch on the sofa, I see two ears poke up as a twitching nose inspects the edge of the cushion. This is followed by another blur and a thud as he leaps on the couch, shoving his blunt face into my hands. I have no choice but to fold. With such stubborn creatures, you can only adjust and learn to live with their temperaments. I smooth his ears back and rub his face with my thumb and forefinger. He closes his eyes and purrs the way rabbits do.