wtnv – fearlessstateofmind backup

theirdarkreturning:

I can’t stop thinking about Jewish!Cecil Palmer headcanons, especially because so much of his mother’s sayings reminds me somehow of my grandmother’s, so… Here goes:

Chanuka menorahs stay lit all eight days in Night Vale. Try to put them out before the holiday is over, and the fire will only get bigger. Carlos nearly scorched his hair when he tried to put out Cecil’s menorah on their way out of the house.

Also, while Chanuka already has a jillion spellings, Night Vale offers at least a hundred new, creative ways to disagree over how the holiday is spelled.

Cecil has mezzuzahs on every door in his apartment and in the station. They screech if you don’t touch it on your way into the room.

Daniel tried to take them down at the station, but they burned him.

Holidays are particularly confusing due to the inconsistency of sundown.

Cecil and Steve Carlsberg had their Bar Mitzvahs on the same day. Half of their grade went to Steve’s Bar Mitzvah instead of Cecil’s. He’s hated him ever since.

Speaking of Bar Mitzvahs, Cecil completed the mandatory B’nai Mitzvah obstacle course challenge in record time and with only fifty stitches needed!

Cecil carries around pebbles in his pocket because you never know when you’ll come across a grave that you ought to pay respect to. (Jews generally leave stones instead of flowers at graves).

Passover was alarmingly easy after the ban on wheat-and-wheat-by-products.

Cecil was heartbroken when his mother covered the mirrors, because he knew she was prematurely mourning him. (Covering mirrors is part of the mourning process in Judaism, which is where my mind immediately went during “Cassettes” when this happened)

He usually has rips in his clothes, some due to general Night Vale things but also to pay respect to all the interns that died.

There’s a closet full of shoes in the station. They all used to belong to dead interns. Cecil keeps it under lock and key to prevent anyone from accidentally putting on a pair, but he can’t bring himself to throw them out. (I don’t know how widespread this superstition actually is, but my grandmother always says to never wear a dead man’s shoes, because you’ll follow in their footsteps)

He doesn’t always keep Shabbos, but Old Woman Josie invites him over every month or so for a good meal.

He does miss bagels and lox – the gluten-free version just isn’t the same.

The local synagogue is small, but respectable. Shame they can’t keep a rabbi for more than two weeks.

The Faceless Old Woman Who Lives In Your Home hides the afikomen on Passover. Cecil can never find it, but she must like Carlos, because the first time he attends a Seder, it’s literally under his chair.

Whenever Cecil wears a yarmulke (and I don’t know how regularly he does?), it’s an atrocious, ugly pattern and design that shouldn’t look good on anyone. He makes it work. Carlos can’t figure it out.

He loves the smell of Christmas and gets overly excited when walking into Carlos’s house during the Christmas season. Carlos teases him, but he goes to sit underneath the Christmas tree to smell it because it smells so good. (I do this often with my non-Jewish friends because it smells like CHRISTMAS, okay?)

Speaking of Christmas, whenever Carlos asks him why he’s so into the holiday, he just shrugs and says that Jesus was Jewish and continues cramming his face with gluten-free Christmas cookies. (Again. Projecting a bit).

Note that Carlos was mildly entertained when Cecil decided to put a lit menorah on top of the Christmas tree.

But not really, he went and found the fire extinguisher instead.

Sometimes when Cecil is really upset or emotional, he starts speaking in Yiddish. Carlos tends to do the same in Spanish. Thus, they’ve had full arguments where neither understands what the other is saying, but they continue to scream at each other anyway.