Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Happy Hanukkah!

Today was our last day of school, so we are officially on our holiday vacation now...and what better way to start a vacation than with the first day of Hanukkah??  Yes, that's right, Hanukkah began tonight at sundown!!  This is my very first time celebrating it, so I was very excited.  Hodel and I dressed up in our  fanciest dresses in the Hanukkah colors of blue and silver, and she told me the story of why Jews celebrate Hanukkah. Thousands of years ago, the Jewish people got their temple in Jerusalem back from their enemies.  They needed to relight the temple's lamp, but they only had enough oil to burn for one day.  They lit it anyway, and the lamp burned for eight whole days, enough time for them to make more oil.  Hanukkah celebrates that miracle, and that's why it's celebrated for eight nights and why it's sometimes called the Festival of Lights!


Hodel said the high up candle in the middle of the menorah is called the shamash, and you light the shamash first and then use it to light the other candles.  Since tonight is the first night, we only lit one of the other eight candles with the shamash.
 

Hodel said a neat prayer in Hebrew when she lit the candle.  You are supposed to light the candle on the right first and then move left each night.  The lit candle was on our right, but it looks like the left when you look at these pictures because we didn't turn the menorah around for them. :-)  Oops!
   

 After we lit the menorah, we exchanged the presents we got for each other.  I was nervous for Hodel to open my present, because I really wanted her to like it!


And what did I give her, you ask?  A Toy Story travel case that she can keep her toothbrush in, or her Ipod or hair stuff or any other little things she wants to keep safe when she is on the road! She said she loved it, and I was happy.


And my present from Hodel was super awesome - she gave me a beautiful dreidel that's all colorful and fancy and pretty!

Tomorrow on Hanukkah night two, Hodel will teach me how to play the dreidel game with it!  She says I will love it. 


1 comment:

  1. KEWL .. glad that you are learning about Hanukkah, we are celebrating tonight too, Loryn, Lynsy, and Logan are sharing it with us too. We all got chocolate coins tonight so that we can use them for doing the dreidel tomorrow night.

    Your colorful dreidel is really beautiful, have fun playing with it.

    Hugs,
    Taryn

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