Happy Hanukkah

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With all my Christmas excitement, I thought it would be nice to include a Hanukkah post. I grew up in a town that had a large Jewish population, so I often think of the Jewish holidays. Since I am scheduled to do my Christmas in Kenya post for the Christmas Around the World series Monday, I will have two Multicultural Monday posts, but this one will be on Sunday.

Sharing Saturday Feature--from Boy Mama Teacher Mama: Clothespin Menorah

A little history about Hanukkah. I'll be honest, I did not know the story behind Hanukkah though I am sure I must have heard it at some point. I took some books out of the library to help me with it.

 
A World of Holidays: Hanukkah by Anne Clark, David Rose, and Gill Rose gives much information on the holiday historically as well as currently. So the story is a long time ago (more than 2000 years ago), a Syrian ruler of Israel, King Antiochus, demanded that everyone in his land believe in the Greek gods instead of the one Jewish God. He actually made it a crime to teach about one God and the punishment was death. He also sent his soldiers into the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem on their horses and put a statue of Zeus in there. He also ordered the soldiers to make pig sacrifices to Zeus in the temple. These acts made the Temple unholy for the Jewish people. Well a priest named Mattathias and his sons refused to give up their own beliefs. They fled to the hills and took the small number of Jews with them to remain loyal to their religion and to fight the Syrians. After Mattathias died, his son, Judah, led the Jews. Even though the Jews were outnumbered they continued to win battles and eventually defeated Antiochus and his men. They returned to their homes in Jerusalem and began to cleanse the temple so they could rededicate it to God. While cleaning it they found a jar of oil that had been used to keep the menorah lit. Antiochus had his men distinguish the flame since the light of the candles represented God's presence to the Jews. This jar of oil was enough to keep the candles lit for a day, but it would take much longer to get more oil. However they lit the candle using the oil (which was made from olives) and the miracle occurred--the lamp stayed lit for eight days!

Source

This is why Hanukkah lasts for eight days and is often called the Festival of Lights. Hanukkah means "rededication". The festival starts on the 25th day of the month of Kislev in the Jewish calendar. The candles are lit at sunset at each night of the eight nights. (The first night this year is/was Saturday the 8th.) The first candle is placed on the right side of the hanukiah (which many people refer to as the menorah), and each night after that a new candle is added to the left. An extra candle, the shamash or servant candle is used to light the other candles and then placed in the center of the hanukiah. Forty four candles are need in all to celebrate. The candles are lit left to right so the newest one is lit first.

Source

Latkes or potato pancakes and doughnuts are traditional foods for Hanukkah. The reason being the oil required to cook them. An easy way to introduce children to Hanukkah would be to make some latkes. There are recipes all over the web as well in many books. I have not made them since I was young so I will not attempt to share one with you.

Other ideas for introducing Hanukkah to children:

• Make a dreidel and play dreidel game (for excellent history/meaning and rules) (How to make one out of clay) (How to make a paper one with free printable one with the symbols already on it)
• Make a Menorah (Clothespin Menorah pictured above) (Coloring Pages and more) (Paper one for ages 2+) (Block Menorah) (Handprint Menorah)
• Other crafts, lessons and activities (Enchanted Learning) (Akhlah) (DLTk's Kids)
• Read a Hanukkah book: Here are two I found at the library but also check out this great post at We Bloom Here with her favorites.

 
 Hanukkah by Miriam Chaikin tells the story of Hanukkah in great detail and explains how to celebrate it.

It's Hanukkah! by Jeanne Modesitt tells how a mouse family celebrates the holiday. This is a great book for young children to understand how families actually celebrate. At the end of the book there is the history of Hanukkah, how to light the menorah including blessings, how to play dreidel, as well as a recipe for latkes and the words and music to O Hanukkah words by A. Evronin.

Sharing Saturday #49

Wow, I had a very hard time choosing features this week. Have you checked out the wonderful ideas shared last week yet? If not, you need to. They are so inspiring. I know I found several ideas I want to try with Hazel.

Click on picture for link to post.

I definitely have Christmas on the brain and I can tell many of you do as well. Here are a few of my Christmas favorites (I also shared one on Wednesday that we already tried).

1) From Family Home and Life: Scripture Ornaments
2) From Scissors and Spoons: Clothespin Stars
3) From Making Boys Men: Nativity Peg Dolls
4) From Raise a Boy: DIY Block Ornaments
5) From Hey Mommy, Chocolate Milk: My First Nativity

On Monday I shared many Advent calendar ideas from last week and several other Sharing Saturdays. I apparently missed a few so I am including them here as well as a Hanukkah craft and some other favorites.

1) From Boy Mama Teacher Mama: Clothespin Menorah
2) From Lewis Music Studio: Recycled Drums
3) From Explore and Express: Advent Nature Table (What an amazing activity!!)
4) From Science Sparks: Candy Cane Goo
5) From Mess for Less: Advent Calendar Jar
6) From Mess for Less: Meringue Snowmen


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From Your Hostess:

Focus on the Nativity (This is a multiple blog--blog hop, but here are some of my ideas including play sets, books, music, printables, and crafts)

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Focus on the Nativity

This year one of my goals is to really focus on the true meaning of Christmas. I feel our society is so much turned away from the religious side of Christmas and more into the commercialism and the receiving. I do not want to bring Hazel up this way. I want her to understand why we celebrate Christmas and why it is a special day. So I have been on the look-out for ways to do this. 

St. Nicholas

December 6th is St. Nicholas Day. And to let you in on a secret, he is visiting the Nursery Classroom at Hazel's school tonight. The children will be surprised when they go inside tomorrow morning. They will also hear a little about St. Nicholas. Do you know about him?

Saint Nicholas was born in the third century in Asia Minor, now Turkey, to a wealthy family. He was raised to be a devout Christian and lost his parents in an epidemic. There are many stories about his giving spirit and caring for the poor, the sick and the suffering. There are also many stories about how he cared for the children. For more information you should check out my source of this information, the St. Nicholas Center.

In the classroom tomorrow the children will hear about a good boy named Nicholas who was given so much good food and toys that he would walk with his pockets full of them and when he saw someone suffering or poor he would give that person his things. He went on to become a Bishop when he grew up and heard about an entire town that was suffering from hunger. He had all of his servants gather food and sailed a ship with blue and white sails to the town and knocked on the doors of the people. No one saw him, but when they answered the door there would be food at it.

There are also customs in some countries of leaving shoes out for your gifts. Apparently one of the times Nicholas threw the food in the windows it landed in a shoe and after that the shoe legend began.

So not only will Hazel get some St. Nicholas celebration at school in the morning, but we also made the hand puppet pictured above using the pattern I found at St. Nicholas Center. We followed the directions and glued everything. Hazel will get to play with it tomorrow.

I also made a felt ornament. I am going to give it to Hazel in the morning. I found the pattern at St. Nicholas Center as well. They also have stories, pictures, printables, find hidden object game and other crafts.

In the morning we will rush to school, but after school we will have some time to explore St. Nicholas a bit more. I printed the hidden object game (one of Hazel's favorite things to do nowadays) and pages to color as well as some of the paper crafts for us to try. 

We also found this book at the used book store, so we will be reading it tomorrow again. The book, The Gift from Saint Nicholas by Dorothea Lachner is a wonderful story about how children making a wish to St. Nicholas and he comes through with giving everyone what they wished even though it had been snowing for days and no one could leave their homes.

Now why do I love celebrating St. Nicholas? Well I love the fact that it changes Santa Claus to someone who believed in Jesus and followed God. I love that it takes the importance of what you receive away and makes it more important that you are a giving person. I feel that it reminds us of the true spirit of the holiday.  How will you be celebrating St. Nicholas Day?

Operation Christmas

So a few weeks ago, Annie from Annie One Can Cook shared at Sharing Saturday that she was co-organizing a sign up for Operation: Christmas. Operation: Christmas is volunteering to send a care package to a U.S. Military service person or in this case platoon for Christmas. We were assigned a platoon and the only message I received from its leader was he had a Christmas tree and a few things for it but anything else would be a blessing. I emailed him and asked if there was anything specific they wanted, but did not hear back, so I was on my own. I found a website from Military Missions in Kentucky that had a complete list of suggested things to send. So off I went.

A few of my goals were to have Hazel involved and to send useful things and fun things. I also tried to go a bit healthy with some of it. The platoon has 30 people in it so we made 30 cards. The tree style card idea came from Mudpies and Sunshine and was shared at Sharing Saturday this week. While we had the pom poms and pipe cleaners out, the snowman popped into my head. We made about 7 or so this way and the rest were just rubber stamped since Hazel lost interest. We sent two gift cards to itunes (which I purchased at church so my church got part of the money). Hazel also made one of her wooden color crafts--this one a nativity. I helped her a bit which helped her stay in the lines more than she normally does. We sent individual packaged almonds and trail mix and Craisins. Plus tea bags, iced tea and lemonade mix, hard candies, Lifesavers, candy canes and some Rice Krispie Treats (or I guess I should say Crisp Rice Treats since they are not made with actual Rice Krispie cereal but a crisped organic brown rice--I buy them at Trader Joe's). 

Now sending something to a military person overseas is interesting. They have special flat rate boxes at the post office to send it Priority Mail. Then you have to fill out the long custom form. I have not had to fill out the long custom form to send anything to Dino Boy (Kelly's at Happy Whimsical Hearts son) in Australia or to Kelly for that matter including the knitted farm swap squares.

I do not think Hazel totally understood who we were sending the package to, but she did want to help with it. I'm hoping it is something we can do each year so she learns more about it. Plus I love giving back to the military when they and their families are sacrificing so much to protect our country. 

Also one of my goals this year is to really keep the true meaning of Christmas present in our lives. Between this and donating a toy to the local toy drive done by the fire department in our town, I think Hazel is understanding a bit about giving to people even when we do not know them. Plus we always ask for donations to a local charity for her birthday party since she really does not need anything else and she goes with me to drop everything off (including things she has outgrown--toys and clothes) and sees the factory as they call it. I do hope to instill some charity in her.

What are you doing this year for others? Is this something you do every year or is this the first year you are doing it?