What are your Chanukah Traditions?

[keeganm]

I'm just stumped on how to start our own Chanukah traditions, I don't really mean "make latkes, open gifts, etc. etc." but am trying to come up with a special tradtion for my kids (5 & 3). I would love to hear what you all do in your families.

[tbb113]

I don't have any either. What the temple we belong to suggests (and I wish I had done it when my kids were younger) is to designate each night as at "type". So one night the gifts could be books, one night the gift is donate to a charity, one night is just gifts for relatives, one night is games night, etc.

I also try and invite friends (both jewish and non-jewish) for one night's dinner. Also, each of my sons and I have our own menorah so we light 3 menorahs each night.

I will be interested to see what other people say as well.

Tyra

[melis_d]

Growing up we did two things that I hope to keep alive for when we have children:

1) We had a book that was the Chanukah story. On the first night of Chanukah, we would cook the latkes and then as we ate dinner, pass around the book and read the story of the holiday to understand why we were celebrating. It was a children's version of the story. It was nice to understand what the tradition was all about...I feel like sometimes that gets lost in the shuffle.

2) Another night we would have a family game of dreidel. As I got older, I actually started collecting dreidels, so on the holiday I got a dreidel and then we would play for while, either for pennies, peanuts or hershey's kisses. Now I have a nice collection and can always remember the rules of the game.

KeeganM, I hope you have a nice holiday and BTW, I grew up in D.C. so it's near and dear to my heart!

Happy Chanukah to everyone.

[hannah_phi]

I gre up only celebrating Chanukah when I was with my grandparents, so there is not much tradition I can speak of. However, I would always help my grandmother clear the table and do the dishes, then we would all play driedel. I also remember that every time my Grandad would give me gelt (money), my Grandmother wouldtell me to spend it on something practical. Then my Grandad would say, "No, spend it all on something you absolutely don't need." LOL!

Now that my Grandad has passed away, my Grandmother says, "Spend this however you feel." I always think that Papa Josh has his hand on her shoulder right then.

[jrichards]

Each night, we'd place "bets" on which candle was going to be the last one burning. I can't remember that we ever got anything for winning, but it was always fun to us.

Our gifts were always hidden, and we'd get a clue. From there, it usually ended up to a hot/cold game if we couldn't locate.

We would also play a game each night (Boggle, etc.)

Jennifer

[Lauren]

Ever since my boys were babies, we have made Hanukkah sugar cookies. We have cookie cutters in the shapes of dreidals, menorahs, stars, a hey, etc. and use blue and gold colored sugar and decorations. We made our cookies yesterday. I always made Hanukkah cookies with my Mom, too.