5 Hanukkah Traditions: How to celebrate Hanukkah at Homes?

Every year Hanukkah event brings families and friends close to honor for miracle in Jewish history. People celebrate the event or festival with lights and stick. By Hanukkah traditions they show appreciation for the holiday and take part by lighting the menorah, eating gelt, cooking, playing the dreidel game, and baking delicious food.

People commemorate the miracle in which in the 165 BC, a lamp had oil enough for one night only, but miraculously, burn for eight nights. From that day, Jewish people celebrate this festival for eight nights every year all over the world.

They celebrate this festival by lighting, playing games, and of course eating tasty food. We will also discuss Hanukkah delicious food recipes as most of the foods cooked are fried, representing the magical oil.

5 Hanukkah Traditions

Let’s have a look on these 5 Hanukkah Traditions that many people want to know. You can incorporate these traditional ideas for Hanukkah into your upcoming holiday celebration:

• Menorah
• Dreidel game
• Gelt
• Food
• Gifts

Menorah:- In this idea people commemorate the miracle in which one-day supply of oil burn for eight nights. They light the nine-branched menorah for representing the miracle, Hanukkah traditions and customs.

You should go for menorah so dust off your menorah from last year, or purchase one at your local Judaica store. Remember to have candles available for each of the eight nights. Practice the Hanukkah prayers and recite while lightening the menorah.

Dreidel game:- Break out your dreidels and get ready for traditional Hanukkah fun. After that you have to notice the Hebrew letters on each side of the dreidel. These letters should represent the words A great miracle happened there. Start your dreidel game properly, which means to include 10 or 15 coins or chocolate for each player and place one coin in the center pot.

It is really very interesting game so what you need to do is to follow our guidelines. Have the first player spin the dreidel? If yes then look which side faces up, and when dreidel falls down then instruction will start. You need to instruct the player to either take a coin or give up a portion of his or her coins on the following code:

• Nun– “nothing”– nothing happens
• Gimel– “all”– take everything in the pot
• Hey– “half”– take half of the pot
• Shin– “put in” – put one coin in the pot

This play will continue until one person has all the coins you should play this as it is much interesting with lots of fun.

Gelt:-  This is also another interesting idea in which you need to purchase some chocolate coins, or gelt. Gelt is the Yiddish word and in English it means money. It is derived from historic times as Jews gave money to teachers, the poor, and also to the children.

You can replace that coin with chocolate gelt as for the sake of modern times, and then distribute it to children. You can also supply some gelt in order to use for the dreidel game.\

Food:- In order to represent the miracle of oil in Hanukkah celebration you can also use food idea. All you need to cook up some tasty potato latkes for appetizers. You can also follow-up the latkes with some mouth-watering pastry, like rugelach, for dessert.

Gifts:- Keep up with modern times, and expand the gelt-giving tradition during Hanukkah. It serves both for the traditional aspect of giving and the fun part of receiving.

How to celebrate Hanukkah at Homes?

There are lots of ways to celebrate Hanukkah event at home but best ways are given below:-

• Lighting the Hanukkah Candle
• Hanukkah Blessings
• Latkes and Doughnuts
• Playing Dreidel
• Songs, Gelt and Gifts

10 Hanukkah Facts

Here are 11 festive facts about Hanukkah festival so read to know what Hanukkah really about?

1. DON’t worry about spelling it wrongs
2. It Celebrates a Military victory & miracle
3. It’s not the biggest Jewish holiday
4. The food isn’t the healthiest
5. The Letters on a dreidel form an Acronym
6. The dates change the year
7. Sometimes HANUKKAH coincides with THANKSGIVING
8. Some JEWS Give Money rather than gifts
9. You will need to light 44 candles
10. You can buy scented candles

Hanukkah food recipes

• Fried Hanukkah Foods

Oil is the reason to celebrate Hanukkah, and plays an important role in making Hanukkah dishes. Latkes are fried potato pancakes and the most popular foods Jewish eat during Hanukkah. It is shredded potatoes made with flour, egg, onions and seasonings.

• Hanukkah Meat Foods

Brisket is a very popular dish that mostly serves at Hanukkah tables. This is a slow-cooked piece of meat and serves as a warming and also welcoming dish during winters.Usually, it is cut from the lower chest or breast of veal and if you want to make brisket:

1. Place a roasting pan on medium heat,
2. Sear brisket from all sides,
3. Pour beef broth,
4. Onion slices,
5. Onion soup
6. Beer in it,
7. Let it bake for 30 minutes