Happy Hanukkah!

Hanukkah (also known as The Festival of Lights and The Feast of Dedication) is an eight day annual festival honoring the restoration of divine worship in the Holy Temple after it had been defiled. It starts on the twenty-fifth of Kislev-usually around early to mid December. The story of Hanukkah is found in the Talmud and the Book of Maccabees.

Around 164 B.C., the Maccabees, led by Judah Maccabee took back Judea from the rule of the Seleucids-Syrian rulers. Hanukkah commemorates the recapture of Jerusalem and the re-establishment of the temple. The temple had been defiled by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the King of Syria.

The Jews cleaned out the temple idols, but only found a small amount of oil....there was only enough oil to light the temple Menorah for one day. They decided to use the small amount of oil to light the Menorah and to everyone's amazement a miracle occurred and the Menorah burned for eight days until they were able to get new oil!

So each year we celebrate Hanukkah by lighting one candle each night on our Hanukkiah. We also play the traditional Dreidel game and this year we have new Dreidels made by our friend from Sukkot! Each of them are hand crafted by a young girl we know-she does a wonderful job!

This one is mine....reminds me of the earth....and I love the color blue!

This one belongs to my oldest daughter "the artist." She loves all the details and little bees on this beehive Dreidel.

This one belongs to my youngest daughter "little pumpkin" she learned about cakes this year and loved this little cupcake.

This camo one is for my "thoughtful son" he loves hunting.

This one is for the "handsome husband." 

We use wrapped candy:


HAY:.....you get half the pot
GIMEL:.....you get all the pot
NUNE:.....you get nothing
SHIN:.....you must put in 1


Whoever has the most at the end wins!