How to Celebrate Hanukkah!

How to Celebrate Hanukkah!

Hanukkah, Chanukah, Chanuka, Hanukah is spelled all sorts of ways because it's a Romanized way of writing the Hebrew word: חֲנֻכָּה

Hannukah, or the Festival of Lights is one of the Jewish lesser holidays. Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem after it fell into the hands of the Greeks in 164 BC.

They had oil in the temple for only 1 day, but the flames of the temple menorah are never supposed to go out. The oil needed would either take 8 days to be delivered to the temple or it took 8 days to produce more oil. 

The miracle is that the oil in the menorah lasted the whole 8 days before their oil supply was replenished. 

Hanukkah begins this year on December 18th 2022 and ends on December 26th 2022--here's How to Celebrate Hanukkah!

Becuase of the 8 days of oil miracle, Hannukah is celebrated using a hanukiah, or 9 candle menorah.

The first night of Hannukah is December 18th. 

The candles are loaded into the hanukiah or menorah from right to left. The candles are lit from left to right.

The center candle is for the lighting of the other candles. The center candle will be lit, then that candle will be used to light the first candle.

It's also customary to give gifts on each night of Hanukkah, although some people wait until the last day and give all the gifts--to compete with Christmas.

Supplies to Celebrate Hanukkah:

• Hanukkah themed fabric Bunting
• Menorah (actually, a Hanukiah)
• Dreidels
• Printable Dreidel Instructions
• Candy (Gelt)
• Striped Cake (from Something Special Custom Cakes)
• Star of David Cake Topper

This Complete Hanukah set is what I've got!

How to Make a Bunting:

• Cotton Fabric
• White Felt
• Sewing Machine
• Scissors
• Rotary Cutter
• Cutting Mat
• Rope or Cord
• Pinking Shears
• Hot Glue/Gun

Use the cutting mat and rotary cutter to cut isosceles triangles of fabric and felt.

You will need 2 pieces of fabric and 1 piece of felt for each triangle bunting.

Sandwich the felt between 2 layers of fabric with the right side of the fabric showing on both front and back.

Then sew the edges of each triangle. Trim the edges with the pinking shears to prevent fraying and also make it look great. 

Hot glue the triangles or sew them to a cord to hang.

How to Make a Star of David Cake Topper:

• Silver Glitter Cardstock
• Blue Cardstock
• Cricut Machine
• Skewers
• Hot Glue/Gun
• Cricut Design Space Project

Cricut Design Space has this amazing option to "offset" the shape. So you can layer anything and everything.

Just select an image to cut and then click the offset button. You can decide how much of an offset you want. This is a quarter of an inch or .25 inches.

Then cut 2 of each shape.

Use the hot glue gun to glue the star layers together.

Then cut a dowel into small pieces and glue them around the peaks of the star, as well as a stick coming out of the base to insert into cake.

Then hot glue the second star on the backside, so the cake topper looks amazing from any angle.

Stick it in the top of your cake!

A drip cake is the way to go! It looks like a big candle--the perfect cake to celebrate the Festival of Lights. 

This cute cake was made by my friend, Something Special Custom Cakes. She has made me a bunch of cakes and they are all amazing. 

The distressed striped cake is just what I pictured for this party!

My husband, Mike, has been learning Hebrew this year. He started by listening to a Hebrew scholar talk about the bible. After a while, Mike felt like the scholar was adding too much of himself in his sermons, and less of the Hebrew and the bible in general. 

Mike decided to learn Hebrew himself so he could read the bible and understand it from the source itself, rather than relying on others interpretation.

He's used many different sources for his learning, but does use Duolingo for modern Hebrew daily. We also started attending our local Jewish synagoge on Friday nights for the Shabbat (sabbath) services. There's memorized songs and prayers in Hebrew, so it's great practice for him. It's also a great way for us to worship God on more days of the week!

Mike's now taking a Hebrew class from one of the synagogue members that is adding to his duolingo course. It has been a really fun and unique addition to our faith this year.

This is largely the source of my excitement about celebrating Hanukkah this year!

I asked the student rabbi if it was culturally appropriate for a non-Jew to celebrate Hanukkah. She said that is absolutely is okay for non-Jew's to celebrate!

I feel so much division in our country right now and want to support, love and care for my Jewish friends. The more we can come together as one, the less the divisions will tear us apart.

Another fun Hanukkah tradition is playing Dreidel. 

It's a top spinning game. There's 4 Hebrew letters that each represent and action. Just spin the top and do what it says.

My husband and I played it the other night...it's probably much more fun in a larger group, so get the family together and give it a try!  

Here's the Printable Dreidel Instructions!

It's also part of the Chanukkah custom to eat food cooked in oil, like latkes. 

Again, it represents the oil of the temple that lasted for 8 days while more oil was procured. It's just part of the fun of the season.

Try adding some Hanukkah festivities into your holidays this year! Here's more on Hanukkah here.

Hopefully this post has been helpful in explaining what, why and how to celebrate Hanukkah! 
It's a new tradition for us to look forward to each year!

I'm sure as we continue celebrating and worshipping with others, we'll learn Hanukkah songs and have a little more ceremony in our candle lighting. 

This year, we'll just gather together to light candles each night and pause amid the chaos to be a little more thankful.

That's it!

Happy Hanukkah friends!
Let me know if you celebrate Chanukah, how you spell it, and your favorite traditions!

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