“So what exactly do you do for Chanukah?” my husband asked our first winter together. We had been married on June 24th, 2000 and were still learning about each other’s families and holiday traditions.
“Well”, I answered, “We light candles every night for eight nights and say blessings. We eat latkes (potato pancakes) with apple sauce and…we give each other presents every night for eight nights.”
“What! I have to buy you eight presents?” he exclaimed. “Chanukah sounds like an expensive holiday!”
“It isn’t really,” I responded, and then went on to explain.
Gift-giving isn’t required during Chanukah. It’s not actually a Jewish tradition. The focal point of the celebrations is the lighting of the Menorah where everyone can see it. Each night we light one more candle than the night before; and each candle represents bringing more light and goodness into the world.
Gift-giving is a borrowed tradition. Since Chanukah falls so close to Christmas, Jewish parents probably started giving gifts to their children so that they wouldn’t be envious of their non-Jewish friends. It was a way of adapting to and participating in the surrounding culture. (Much like the blue fairy lights in my previous story)
In my family, after we lit the candles, we took turns opening our gifts. My parents taught us to appreciate what we were given; that it really is the thought that counts.
On the first and second night, we gave and received personal items, sort of what you might put under the tree; on the third and fourth nights we would receive a family gift, something for all of us to play with together like a board game; on the sixth and seventh nights we would get something small, like you might put in a stocking. On the eighth night we would each get something small, like chocolates.
So really, it’s similar to the presents you might get for Christmas, but spread out over eight days.
My husband nodded his head and said he understood. So with this information and an agreement on how much we would spend, we celebrated Chanukah. We lit the candles every night, I said the blessings, and we gave each other presents in the way my parents had done in our family.
When the eighth night arrived there was a big heavy box on the table for me. My husband just smiled when I reminded him that this was just supposed to be a small gift, like chocolates. I think I’d bought him an O-Henry or a Pez dispenser. Anyway, I opened the box and there, taped together were a dozen chocolate oranges! We must have laughed for half-an-hour -- I’d been so serious about the rules of our gift-giving.
Now, that’s a lot of chocolate and I didn’t want to eat it all at once so I decided we would have one chocolate orange on the 24th of every month – on our month-aversary.
Thirteen years later, I still get 12 chocolate oranges on the eighth night, and we still have a chocolate orange every month on our month-aversary. We created a new tradition in our home of keeping the sweetness and goodness of Chanukah with chocolates all year round.
What will you do in your home this year to keep light and joy in your life all year long?
Fiona Prince (aka Morah Faiga) is a Communications & Behavioural Consultant in Victoria, BC. She volunteers for Chabad Vancouver Island, teaching children and adults how to read Hebrew.
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