Zach's Hanukkah Surprise (Figured it out Edit: 12/22/2015)

I have been volunteering at the school a lot over the past two months. Last week, one of the aids for a kid in Zach's class told me something interesting. Zach had told her we celebrate Hanukkah. This tells me two things:

1. He's accepting of other religions so I'm doing my job right.

2. In teaching him about other religions we clearly confused him.

Every year I look at the price of menorahs. They generally aren't expensive but too expensive of our purpose. We are Episcopalian, an accepting form of Christianity. We celebrate Advent and Christmas. In some ways, Christmas Eve is it's own holiday. In our house, Christmas Eve is for the religious side of Christmas and Christmas Day is for the Commercial side of Christmas.

We talk about Hanukkah. Hanukkah and Christmas are both about miracles. Different miracles, but we all are reminded that miracles do happen. I think about doing the menorah part of Hanukkah so we can talk about what his Jewish friends do for their holiday. But we have never celebrated Hanukkah.

I don't know why he thinks we celebrate Hanukkah. It's the innocence of a six year old encouraged to learn about others. Perhaps he wants to experience celebrating Hanukkah. I asked Zach why he said that and he said he didn't know why. We miss this not teaching about these things in public schools. It's why we have so many people against other religions. Because they don't know anything about them. I ask people from other religions about their religion because I'm curious. I love that Zach is the same way.

Figured it out edit:

So I figured out why Zach thinks we celebrate Hanukkah. With Advent, you have a wreath with four candles. You light an extra candle each week of advent. He's confusing Advent and Hanukkah.


Happy Hanukkah!!!