I grew up celebrating Jewish holidays along with the common Christian holidays. I am glad I had the opportunity to experience both, a mix of cultures. Whether you are Jewish or not, Hanukkah is a wonderful holiday I am sure you would enjoy. Here are 8 things to love about Hanukkah.

1.Hanukkah lasts 8 days.

Yes, you heard that right, Hanukkah is an 8-day holiday. That means 8 days of feasting, celebrating, and gifts. Why celebrate a holiday for just one day when you can celebrate for more than a week!

2.Hanukkah has an inspiring story behind it.

Like most holidays, Hanukkah has a beautiful history behind it. The holiday celebrates a time over 2,000 years ago when the Jewish people were overrun by the Romans. They weren’t allowed to worship and follow their traditions. The temple was taken from them, but they fought and won it back. In the temple was a menorah, it was meant to stay lit continually as an offering to God. When they won the temple back and rededicated it, they only had one day’s worth of oil left, and they wouldn’t be able to have more ready for another 8 days. They used the last of their oil anyway, in the hope that God would keep it burning, and He did. That one day supply of oil lasted all 8 days and the light never went out. This little miracle gave hope in a dark time when so much had been taken from the Jewish people.

3.Hanukkah is a reminder that miracles do happen.

It is so easy to get caught up in the struggles of day to day life. That is why we need the holidays, why we need Hanukkah to get our eyes off our own problems, and restore hope and childlike wonder in us again. To remind us that miracles do happen; they may be small miracles at times, but if we look, we will see them. It is a time to be thankful for the little blessings in life, to not forget them no matter how bad our circumstances may be. We all need that reminder, that hope, and encouragement in our lives.

4. Hanukkah means we each play a part.

I grew up in a big family, but since there are 8 days of Hanukkah, we each had our night to light the candles. For Hanukkah, every night the candles on the menorah are lit. Each night you add one more candle until the menorah is full on the eighth night. We all got to participate in this moment as a family, each of us kids had our own night were we got to light the candles, and as a kid in a big family that meant a lot.

5. 8 times the gifts.

Hanukkah is not just one day of gifts, it is eight. Every night our mom would bring home a new gift for each of us. Often, they were things for the whole family like board games or movies or treats or fuzzy socks, another favorite. Sure, maybe they weren’t a bunch of big gifts at once, but having little gifts every night for a week is awesome. There is a spirit of thankfulness and gift giving every night! Often us siblings would also each pick a night to give our own gifts to each other.

6. 8 days of feasting.

Hanukkah is a time to forget about your diets and just enjoy yourself and feast for a week. Since the holiday celebrates how the oil in the temple didn’t run out, the tradition is to cook lots of oily foods. Donuts and latkes! Latkes are potato pancakes, they are like hash browns but better. And don’t forget the chocolate coins!

7. Games.

For Hanukkah, our family enjoyed playing different games together every night. We would play our typical board games, and we would often buy new games just for the occasion. We are definitely a board game family! We also enjoyed a traditional Hanukkah game called dreidel. In the game of dreidel, everyone has a 4-sided spinning top or dreidel. You take turns spinning and the symbol it lands on determines the number of coins you put in the middle or take out. The goal of the game is to win all the coins. The tradition is that when the Jews were under Roman rule they were not allowed to study the Torah so they would memorize it orally and play dreidel so they looked like they were just playing a gambling game.

8. Hanukkah is a time to enjoy with family.

I have countless wonderful memories celebrating Hanukkah with my family. It was a way to bring our family together and enjoy time with one another as we celebrated around mom’s homemade latkes, lighting the menorah, giving gifts, and playing dreidel. I think that is the most beautiful part of the holidays, it is a time to bring the family together and celebrate together. It is a time to build memories together that we can all look back on and remember the great times we had together.

Whatever holidays you may be celebrating this season may it be filled with light and joy, time with family, and the reminder that miracles do happen, even in the small everyday blessings. Happy Hanukkah! and Happy Holidays!