Happy Hanukkah!

Next Friday is Zach's holiday show. He's been learning about the December Holidays in school and is getting excited. We celebrate Christmas but don't forget Hanukkah. Which is why I wasn't really surprised when today he said "Can we celebrate Hanukkah and get a Menorah?" Actually, he called it a Menor but it's sweet that he wanted to experience what his Jewish friends will experience starting Sunday night.

My Grandma (Mom's Mom) died in March of 2002. For years her Jewish friend, Leo, would come for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinner. My mom would set up a Menorah and make latkas. We had dreidels that we just spun, not understanding the symbols, and had the gold coins. But we also learned about what the eight nights are for. We didn't celebrate Hanukkah but we learned about it. We also got together with My parents' best friends and their kids to celebrate Passover. Actually, I emailed their daughter to see if she wants to start that tradition again. She has a son a little younger then Zach but they have never met.

So for me it was a no-brainer.....if menorahs weren't expensive we'd get one and celebrate Hanukkah. My Mom said she didn't have hers so we would have to buy one. Target's cheapest one was $20 and the candles were about $8 so we decided not to do that this year. But we will talk about Hanukkah and show pictures of menorahs with the lights. Whenever Zach tells me of something they talk about in school I reinforce it at home in as real a way as possible. When they learned about squirrels we paid extra attention to watching them collect acorns and run up trees as I talked about forging for food, for example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah

I've always been curious about if the right spelling is with the H or C. I looked it up on Wikipedia (above link). Apparently, in the Hebrew spelling of Hanukkah the first sound is Chet but the ch sounds different. Personally, I'm just proud of myself for writing this blog post without misspelling Hanukkah. I forget how many n's are in there sometimes and other times I forget the second k.

There is a bear yard decoration nearby holding a dreidel. Josh drives by it on the way home from work. It's a blow up decoration and it's one of my favorite at this time of year. With all the beautiful lights people have decorated with, it truly feels like a festival of lights. The white lights are beautiful! A little oil, a lot of light for longer then expected. A true miracle.

Here is Zach's christmas picture for this year. Happy Holidays everyone. I guess soon I should learn about Kwanzaa. In the meantime, as Hanukkah approaches this Sunday......Shalom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalom