Photoessay #919 - Hanukah

We lit the Hanukah candles tonight, day 3. This lovely photo is taken from my friend Joline's facebook site. Very pretty and caught my eye with it's light and beauty. Kind of like Joline!

We don't make a big deal of Haunukah at our house. But we do light the candles, usually there's some hanukah gelt and maybe some of those chocolate coins (though I don't have any this year). We light the candles and then mumble Rock of Ages, which I don't really know the words and my humming's off. But that's how my kids have learned, you light the candles, you say the blessing then you mumble the song that you really don't know the words to. You know, tradition.

My mother attended a hanukah party at her temple on Friday. She brought her menorah. Of course, I asked which one? She laughed and said that the had told everybody the story.

My mother owns two menorahs, one a very pretty light blue ceramic one from Israel, the 'good one'. Then she had a bashed up stained stamped tin giveaway one that she got from religious school in the thirties. UGGGGGGGLY. Of course, that's the one we used to light the candles. The other one was 'for good'. So, when I was some kind of teen, we went to a Hanukah party at our temple. I threw a fit, no way, NO WAY, were we going to bring that stamped tin thing, I insisted we must take the 'good one'. My mother relented and we took the Israeli menorah and lit our candles.

Here's the punch line. Guess what kind of menorah the rabbi's family used? You guessed it, an old stamped tin one just like my mother's.

I still haven't lived that one down!