First Night of Chanukah December 21, 2008

Happy Chanukah!

edit:  This shot made it onto Flickr-blog.  What a nice surprise!

Felt Chanukiah December 11, 2008

More Chanukah crafts from the ghost of Chanukah past!  We did actually make something yesterday that I will post about tomorrow but today it’s felt Chanukiah – head spinning like a dreidel?

My oldest and I made this simple Chanukiah “felt board” a couple of years ago.  We hang it on the wall and it’s a nice way for kids who are too young for matches to be involved in the “lighting” of a chanukiah.  Quick lesson from someone who learned this 8 years ago,  menorahs are an important part of Jewish ritual and are usually 7 branched and the special menorah for Chanukah is called a Chanukiah and has 9 branches.  1 for each of the 8 days of Chanukah and 1 for the Shamash or “helper candle” that is used to light all the others. The Shamash is usually elevated or seperated somehow to differentiate it from the candles representing the nights of Chanukah.

Front of Felt Chanukiah:

Back which has a pocket to store the candles & flames:

First night (and I don’t remember if I’m starting it the right direction but you get the idea):

We used stamps, you can embroider or make a freezer paper stencil to decorate yours because you don’t watch television like I do and you seem have boundless amounts of energy like I don’t!

And finally a shot from yesterday.  The drediels (and other various spinning objects) are really starting to whirl around here.

It’s a Pirate’s Life for Me December 10, 2008

We dredged the Chanukah box out of the basement today.

Two years ago we had “Piranukah”.  Piranukah = Pirate Chanukah, of course!

Chanukah is the one Jewish holiday that is not religiously based so we took a little liberty  and came up with Piranukah.  Here is our treasure chest that we used to store our 8 nights of gifts in and to set the tone for general pirate merriment.

Unorthodox, uh-huh.  Fun as all get out, you bet!  We’re undecided if we’re going to go with a theme this year or not.  Egyptonukah perhaps?

I’ve seen a lot of great Christmas crafts in bloggertown but haven’t found any cool Chanukah crafts.  Anyone have any on their blogs or seen some in their travels?

Thanks and have a good one, no matter what you call it!!!!