Playing Dreidel

Tonight, after we lit the second candle on the menorah, Hodel taught me how to play dreidel.  It was really fun, just like she said it would be.  The dreidel has a Hebrew letter on each side of it.  The letters are: nun, gimmel, hay, and shin (Hodel helped me spell those). :-)  Those are the first letters in the Hebrew phrase 'Nes gadol hayah sham.'  That means 'A great miracle happened there.'  Which, of course, is the miracle of the oil burning for eight whole days when it only should have burned for one.

Besides the dreidel, you need something to put into the prize pot to play.  You can use pennies or other coins, candy, or any other treats you want, really.  Hodel and I used gelt, which are chocolate coins wrapped in foil especially for Hanukkah.

To start the game, everyone puts a coin into the pot.  Then you spin the dreidel, and what you have to do depends on which Hebrew letter the dreidel lands on.  Nun means neither win or lose, so the dreidel gets passed to the next player and everyone puts another coin in the pot.  Gimmel means you get to take the whole pot, hay means you get to take half of it, and shin means you have to put one more coin into the pot.  Once you run out of coins to put into the pot, you're out!  We played two games and Hodel won both, but we will have a rematch soon, and maybe luck will be on my side then!

After our dreidel games we got to open another Hanukkah present, from Katie this time.  We both got sparkly ornaments in Hanukkah silver.  So pretty!
 

 

Happy day two of Hanukkah! :-)