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Happy Hanukka!
I have some of my happiest holiday memories of Hanukka. My grandmother was a humanist jew raised by atheist communists so my dad and his sisters never went to temple or shul. Our family ceremony consists in lighting the candles while singing a little song, and nobody in our family can agree what the melody actually is anymore. We got presents every night as children, but only significant ones on the first few and little surprises after that, like a used book or a single piece of dollhouse furniture, or a little box of candy.
One of my favorite things was when they'd invite friends over on the second or third night. Then my mom, who considered cooking a hobby at that time, would make the whole feast of latkes again (usually only prepared for the first night) and we'd give presents to their kids as well. The non-latke dish was usually a whole roast chicken with rice.
Cooking together is sort of a hobby for us too, but we've made multiple attempts and every time the latkes just felt like too much work to be worth it. We aren't big on frying at all, and we both hate deep frying after seeing our parents injured doing it in our childhoods. (Both my parents went to the hospital when I was 13 and the pan burned a hole in the kitchen flooring!)
Over the years I've gone around and around about the issue of Hanukka candles too. The ones I grew up with, little tapers, are not readily gotten in Finland because there are so few jews: there are exactly two synagogues and they're both Orthodox (🫤 so by their standards I don't count as a jew... ) and only the Helsinki one actually sells stuff, as far as I can tell.
Given that I'm an atheist and there is actually no requirement that the lights be blessed candles in the first place, ordering them internationally and adding a bigger carbon footprint to the ceremony seems silly. Tea lights are acceptable and that's what I've used most of the time, but I wasn't happy that they wouldn't go in the cheap hanukkiya I got when I moved away from home.
Last year I bought a candle holder that's a classic piece of minimalist midcentury Nordic design and holds 9 tealights or tapers, and it's so minimalist that I laugh every time I look at it, so it's a big win. (Stumpastacken, a big aluminum tray that you can use to warm a teapot if you put a little wire lid over it.) I think of it as the Hanukka version of the Bauhaus nativity.
I tried to find the Bauhaus nativity viral post in the original or on knowyourmeme but failed, but here it is:
One of my favorite things was when they'd invite friends over on the second or third night. Then my mom, who considered cooking a hobby at that time, would make the whole feast of latkes again (usually only prepared for the first night) and we'd give presents to their kids as well. The non-latke dish was usually a whole roast chicken with rice.
Cooking together is sort of a hobby for us too, but we've made multiple attempts and every time the latkes just felt like too much work to be worth it. We aren't big on frying at all, and we both hate deep frying after seeing our parents injured doing it in our childhoods. (Both my parents went to the hospital when I was 13 and the pan burned a hole in the kitchen flooring!)
Over the years I've gone around and around about the issue of Hanukka candles too. The ones I grew up with, little tapers, are not readily gotten in Finland because there are so few jews: there are exactly two synagogues and they're both Orthodox (🫤 so by their standards I don't count as a jew... ) and only the Helsinki one actually sells stuff, as far as I can tell.
Given that I'm an atheist and there is actually no requirement that the lights be blessed candles in the first place, ordering them internationally and adding a bigger carbon footprint to the ceremony seems silly. Tea lights are acceptable and that's what I've used most of the time, but I wasn't happy that they wouldn't go in the cheap hanukkiya I got when I moved away from home.
Last year I bought a candle holder that's a classic piece of minimalist midcentury Nordic design and holds 9 tealights or tapers, and it's so minimalist that I laugh every time I look at it, so it's a big win. (Stumpastacken, a big aluminum tray that you can use to warm a teapot if you put a little wire lid over it.) I think of it as the Hanukka version of the Bauhaus nativity.
I tried to find the Bauhaus nativity viral post in the original or on knowyourmeme but failed, but here it is:
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Thanks for posting your family memories of Hanukka. I hope you get to enjoy it this year in whatever way is working for you nowadays!!!
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