Hanukkah, or the Festival of Lights as it's often known, is all about the re-dedication of the Temple in 165BC, after the Romans had got up to their usual tricks and put an altar to Zeus in there. The Maccabees kicked them out, wrote a couple of books in the Apocrypha about it, and since then people have lit menorahs, played dreidel and, most importantly, eaten a lot of food.
Judaism has all the best holidays, with personal favourites being New Year of the Trees and Shavuot, when everything you eat has to be made of cheese. Top that, Christianity! The original story of the Temple involves a miracle of oil, and what else can you do with oil but fry food in it? Or pull it out of the ground and sell it, if you're Hannah. So Hanukkah dinner (which lasts eight days) included fried potato latkes and deep-fried donuts, lovingly prepared by Jessie, although she did sneak some salad and even some home-made oregano jelly onto the table, which they surely didn't enjoy in second century BC Jerusalem.
We lit the menorah, we sang songs, we ate far too much fried stuff, and after that came time to play dreidel, which is like gambling except the dice is a spinning top and you can eat the money. You also won oranges, although I don't think that's Biblical.
It was a fantastic night of fun, which made me wonder: why not put every religious holiday onto one calendar? Being the Internet someone has already done this, so my New Year's resolution must be to celebrate them all. It's going to busy - see you for L. Ron Hubbard's birthday on 18th March.
Jane - lighting the menorah, singing in Hebrew, serving as Parish Council Secretary at the Cathedral. Go girl!
Hannah and Pete get in on the act under Jessie's sensible guidance.
It's a feast day, literally.
Gambling and religion: uneasy bedfellows since the dawn of time.
I'm sure my dreidel was fixed.
