Hanukkah

Being pretty pregnant and all, Christmas has been a big enough challenge this year. So when Madeleine came home from her nursery school asking when we were going to celebrate Hanukkah, I was shocked. She didn't let it go though. All last week and most of this week she has been talking about it. Honestly, I think she might have been more excited about Hanukkah than Christmas. So I emailed her teachers, and then started getting things ready for our day of Hanukkah.

I'm really lucky that a lot of my favorite customers at Starbucks are Jewish. When I told them that Madeleine had her heart set on Hanukkah, they helped me get a list of what to do and where to get them. They are wonderful, and they even told me about their childish dreams of Christmas and how their parents made their wishes happen. Even Madeleine's teachers sent her home with a little dreidel and book to borrow, so by today everything was almost set. 

First we read some books of course about Hanukkah.

The Story of Hanukkah was really good and religious. 

I have a Little Dreidel was the dreidel song. Turns out there is like 10 verses to it. Madeleine has been learning it at nursery school so she was pretty excited to hear the whole thing.

Then the last book was just a short story about Latkes. It was cute and about helping people.

Then we made dinner. Madeleine had made the applesauce with me earlier this week, so we just had to make the latkes. 

After dinner, we played the dreidel game, ate our jelly donuts, and lit our "menorah".

Madeleine surprised us by knowing what each side of the dreidel meant. She would sigh or try to cheat each time she landed on "shin".

She was super concerned that we didn't have a big helping candle in the middle.

 We briefly talked about temples and how we would be sad if someone trashed and hurt our temple, and how we would celebrate having it back. I think she got that part.

 I learned a lot about Hanukkah and it was a fun family evening. This whole week is just a week of celebrations. Tomorrow is the Winter solstice which we are planning on celebrating, and then of course, Christmas, and Madeleine's birthday.