The Gentile's Guide to Chanukah (or Hannukah... or Hanaka... or however you choose to spell it)

So... on this, the 2nd night of Chanukah 2008 (2nd night, right? Who knows. I can't remember if it started on Sunday night or Monday night, but whatever. Close enough.) I thought it might be prudent to give the Jewish challenged folk in my life a little lesson about this holiday which is so often misunderstood. Call it my mitzvah for the year. (Jewish Challenged People: The word "mitzvah" is Yiddish or Hebrew or something for "good deed".)

So, below are some of the FAQ I receive here in the south where Chanukah is so widely mizunderdastood.

Q. Why is Chanukah at a different time every year?
A. My ancestors thought it would be fun to keep the gentile guessing. OR... because all Jewish holidays are celebrated according to the Hebrew Calendar which is different from English calendar. Just to illustrate this point, while you non-Jews will soon be welcoming the year 2009, we Jews will be waiting until Rosh Hashana in Sept. to begin the year 5770. The Hebrew calendar is shorter than the English calendar, so the holidays move around. That's why you hear us Jews talking about "Chanukah/ Rosh Hashana/ Purim is early this year!" It's our favorite thing to talk about. (well, 2nd favorite. Our favorite thing to talk about is what we will be eating at the next meal as we consume the current meal. But I digress.)

Q. What are you celebrating at Chanukah? Does it have something to do with Christmas?
A. No. Nothing to do with Christmas at all! Zero, zilch, nada. The fact that there are presents on Chanukah and it happens around the same time as Christmas (sometimes) confuses people into thinking the two holidays are kissing cousins or something. In reality (and long story short) the Jewish temple was trashed by some bad people and after the damage was assessed, it was determined that there was only enough oil left to last one day. (Or something like that. Give me a break Jewish friends. It's been a long time since Sunday school.) But the oil lasted seven days instead and Chanukah is a celebration of that miracle.

Q. What's with the candelabra you always light?
A. That's called a menorah. It's got eight candles on it. One for each night of Chanukah and then the 8th is the candle we use to light all the others. You start out by lighting one candle the first night, two on the second, three on the third etc. There are a few prayers that you say, I think three on the first night and then two on the second. We sing them in Hebrew and that is probably atrocious for anyone who can hear. Then in the morning, after the candles have burned out, you pull out a metal skewer normally used for cooking shish-kabobs on the grill and dig out all the melted wax. (Of course, that may have just been at my parent's house.) It was always my favorite part. Strange? Yes. Are you surprised?

Q. How cool is it to get so many presents?
A. And herein lies the crux of the confusion. I can only speak for my family, of course, and the families of friends I grew up with, but here it is. You may want to sit down for this one. It's a bit of a nasty shock if you don't see it coming... Celebrating Chanukah is NOTHING like Christmas. In the past, when I have attended a Christmas celebration, I have seen orgys of present opening under the Christmas tree. Piles of presents in beautiful paper... toys... games... clothes... stocking stuffers. Good God but you all get a lot of stuff.

At Chanukah, as a child, you get about one present a night. Perhaps two. And one of them is always socks. Or some pair of shoes you don't want to have to wear to Temple. Or, worse comes to worse, Chanukah gelt. (Those are the little gold wrapped chocolate coins that come in the yellow fishnet. Gelt means "money" in Hebrew.) The gelt chocolate doesn't even really taste all that great, to be honest. So on the first night of Chanukah, you may get a gift from your parents. The next night may be from siblings. The next night, you get one from crazy Aunt Mildred who lives in Florida. She got you a sweet little hat to put on your keppie (yiddish for "head") to keep you warm in the cold Cleveland winter and if you would just come down to Florida already you wouldn't have to be so cold and then you could get a real gift. Oy, why do these meshuge (yiddish for "crazy") kids never come to visit?

So you see, all those kids who sit and picture eight whole days of Christmas Morning-style partying are so sadly mistaken. At my parent's house, as I believe I mentioned in an earlier blog, we would light the Menorah during a commercial from the evening prime time TV. Then Dad would make us march around the house singing Chanukah songs and then either make us hunt for our gifts or just give them to us. Whole thing would be over before the commercial ended. And that's not to say I didn't look forward to the holiday. I always did. I liked lighting the candles (I looked forward to lighting the match and would pick out my favorite box matches every night to use. Young pyromaniac for sure!) and digging out the aforementioned wax every morning. There was always something really peaceful, as well, about walking into the kitchen after the candles had been burning for a while and standing in the dark, watching the colorful wax melt into interesting designs onto the tin foil beneath the menorah that kept the wax from sticking to my mother's pristine counters. I always liked arranging the colors of the candles too, sometimes alternating between two colors, sometimes going with a block of color, sometimes just putting together a random sampling of colors from the blue boxes we always had in abundance because they gave them out to us at Sunday School every year.

But did I walk away from any Chanukah with an overwhelming bag of booty? No. I do remember walking away one year with an excellent new Olivia Newton John album ("Totally Hot") but that's about it.



Q. Do you and your family get together for Chanukah?
A. Another harsh truth to be faced. Chanukah is for kids. Really, it is. My parents still give me a gift every year, but that's it. I don't run around trying to find a gift for my Aunt on my mother's side or my brother-in-law's cat. In fact, I give a gift to my niece, one to my cou-niece (that's the daugher of my cousin who is more like a sister than a cousin so her daughter is more like a niece than anything else. I am her Coz-Aunt Sheri and she is my Cou-Niece Sara.) and one to my oldest friend's kids. And that's it folks. So there is really not all that much enthusiasm about getting together at Chanukah. It's not a big family holiday for us (and by "us" I mean the Reform Jews. Conservative and Orthodox Jews may feel differently, but either way, it's not a major holiday for us. Rosh Hashana is much more important!) Thanksgiving is the big winner in the Spitz house.

So those are a few of the questions I get most frequently. If you have more, by all means, ask me. I probably won't know the answers, but I can certainly point you in the direction of a website which will explain it allllllllllll.

In the meantime, I wish every reader a Happy Holiday Season and a happy healthy New Year. Shalom, out.

(Oh... yeah, Shalom means peace. And Hello and Goodbye. So it's a confusing language. What can I tell you?)