December Isn't Just for Christmas-Teach Your Children About the Other Holidays -- Hanukkah

After several years working with international students and living in a city that has such a wealthy of diversity, not only do I get to participate in all the exciting events and opportunities for Christmas but I also get to witness first hand some other holidays as well as how other cultures may celebrate Christmas. It is so exciting to learn new things and to be able to share them with my children and have them exposed to the whole wide world of holidays. Here are some ways, I explain all the different holidays this month to my children through either our home school time or playtimes.

Hanukkah
This year Hanukkah begins at sundown on December 4, 2007. Sometimes Hanukkah is also referred to as Chanukah. This is the Jewish holiday that occurs quite often around the same time as Christmas, but it is not a "Jewish" Christmas. It is actually an eight day festival titled "The Festival of Lights." It is a celebration in honor of a miracle that occurred a long time ago when the Jews and the Maccabees (another group of people) wanted to keep the Jews from being able to worship God in their own way. They fought for three years and in the end the Jewish people got to keep their temple (a church) because of a miracle. Long ago, the only light that people had came from burning oil in lamps and these people were running out of oil. They only had enough to light the lamps for one more day and they would not be able to fight anymore. This is where the miracle occurred, the lights in the temple kept burning for eight days, which gave everyone enough time to make more oil and to win the battle. During the celebration of Hanukkah, the great miracle of light is remembered. This is done by lighting candles each night for all eight days of Hanukkah in memory of the eight days that the lamps stayed lit in the temple.