Homemade Hanukkah Decorations Made Easy

Hanukkah is the Jewish Festival of Lights. It is an eight day long holiday that is observed sometime between November and December. Each night, a new light is lit so that on the first night, one light is lit then, on the second, two are lit. This continues until all eight lights are lit.

There are many other parts of this tradition including special additions to the daily prayer rituals, many songs are sung, Psalms are recited and in North America, presents are exchanged. Because of the variety of activities during this eight day period, there are many crafts that can be done to help celebrate. The traditional colors of Hanukkah are blue and white. Keep this in mind when purchasing supplies for your crafts.

You can make the Star of David. This is fairly simple, so even young children can help. You need 6 popsicle sticks, glue, glitter, and ribbon. Make 2 triangles using 3 popsicle sticks for each one. Place one triangle with the point facing you. Put glue over the entire triangle. Place the other triangle with the point facing away from you so that a star is formed. Place glue on that triangle. Now, sprinkle glitter over the star. Once the glue is dry, turn the star over and glue and glitter that side. Once that side is dry, loop a piece of ribbon through the top point of the star and hang the star in your home.

Another common craft for Hanukkah is making wrapping paper. As with the Star of David, this is a good craft for kids. You need plain white wrapping paper, markers or colors, rubber stamps of Hanukkah items, and ink. If you cannot find rubber stamps that are suitable, you can make your own out of potatoes. This is rather difficult and it is an activity for adults because you have to use a knife to carve the potato.

Decorating the wrapping paper is fairly simple. Lay out the paper on a flat surface. Either draw the Hanukkah items on the paper or, using your stamps and ink pad, stamp the pictures on the paper. Once the paper dries, wrap the presents with it. If you want to make gift tags, you can do this by simply cutting a rectangle of white paper, fold it in half and decorate the front and write the to and from information on the inside.