Lights!!

Today is the First day of Hanukkah... The Festival of Lights! While our family is not Jewish, a very dear friend of mine (and my baby catcher here in Oregon!) IS! So, I like to take the opportunity to talk with the treekids a little bit about this holiday. NOW, I do NOT proclaim to know a whole lot about Jewish celebrations. But, I think that it is fun for the treekids to get to know a little bit about the history of the Jewish holiday!

So, I was playing around last night online at Amazon and found this FREE MP3 Download! It is a fun, snappy tune about Hanukkah! Let's just say that Blossom couldn't hear it enough times and was singing along! So, if you want a fun LITTLE way to talk about Hanukkah with your kids... this is a fun one! (I'm not sure why Orin Hatch's picture is the cover for this song, a nice little menorah would have been nice, but what do I know!? He apparently wrote the song, did NOT perform it, but hey, it's FREE and cute! I promise that an older Mormon U.S. Senator will not be singing this song celebrating a Jewish holiday!!)

Last year, we crafted a flame-less menorah for our friend. It looked a little like this - with all the painting "outside the lines" that children do!

photo credit: Family Fun

They had fun and were looking forward to crafting something fun for this year... We tried something with toothpicks! They had fun painting - after I used the hot glue gun. They were all afraid of burning them selves on such a small craft! (I think I have taught them well to respect the hot glue gun!! I have burned myself far too many times to count and they apparently don't want to add to the tallies!)

photo credit: Good Housekeeping

We'll be off to the big town today to run a few errands and to hit the library's book auction for children. We plan to purchase a few delicious looking jelly or cream filled donuts to place on a blue plate and stick our sparkly Stars-of-David into before dropping them off at her office and giving her a great big Happy Hanukkah Hug!! SHE will most definitely be missed when we move... somewhere, sometime. (No, we still do not know where or when!)

As for us, we will do our own small festival of lights... I don't think that this will count in ANY way for the Jewish celebration! But, on our way home, we plan to drive through our little town to see all of the beautiful (and even the tacky) blinking lights!! Nothing like a shot of commercialism tied to a beautiful holiday!!