Today marks our December Not Just a Mom link up hosted by myself, Adrienne, Lauren, Ashley, and Sarita. The topic for the month is Holiday Traditions. Last week, I talked about holidays we celebrate throughout the year, as Hanukkah tends to be our most well-known and talked about holiday, but I want people to be aware of more than Hanukkah. However, it is Hanukkah right now, so today I am sharing some of our Hanukkah traditions! Also, this is the last Not Just a Mom link up for 2020, but we are continuing on for 2021 with new topics and new hosts, so make sure to check them out below!
1. The most important tradition is lighting the menorah! Each night, a candle is added. The kids like to take turns lighting for the family. Zachary lit the one in the back on the first night, but I missed the picture. This is Dave lighting the other one.
2. We have a custom of putting this glass menorah case from Israel outside on our porch. In Israel, everyone does this! It is a tradition to show that you are proud to be Jewish by putting a menorah in the window. New this year to us is an electric menorah for this purpose.
3. Gift giving is a custom that has become very widespread, and we do it too! This year is our first time not giving the kids a gift every night. Instead, the boys got a computer and they already received it prior to the first night! Gabbie got her guitar on night 1, and it was cute how excited the boys were to give it to her.
4. It is a custom to eat fried foods on Hanukkah. We love latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiot (donuts). When we are in Florida over Hanukkah we can get the best sufganiot – though I hear they’re even better in Israel!
Fried chicken and latkes from 2018
Donuts in 2017 – We usually go to multiple events put on by local synagogues and this is from one of them. I will miss that this year!
Hot Dog Menorah from 2017!
5. Since we moved to Kansas, unless we are in Florida at the time, we have celebrated one of the nights with our friends who invite us for dinner and a gift exchange. I always love taking pictures of all the menorahs we light together at their house.
2018
6. One of the local synagogues has a Hanukkah art contest and then celebrates the winners at the ice skating rink. We sometimes missed the event due to being in Florida, but when we went it was a lot of fun! This year, they are having a car parade with packaged donuts to give out, and will be lighting the menorah at the JCC parking lot.
2018
7. We also have gone to other menorah lightings, like this one in 2017:
8. As I mentioned a few times, we usually go to Florida over winter break, and it sometimes overlaps with Hanukkah. This year, the holiday ends before we would have been leaving for Florida, so I would have been missing celebrating there even without it being 2020.
At my parents’ house – also 2017!
There you have it – 8 of our regular year Hanukkah traditions! We will make the most of it this year!
If you wrote about your holiday traditions, you can link up with us here.
Here is our new graphic and topic schedule for 2021!
Welcome our new hosts Jen, Joanne, and Sarah!
