Hanukkah at our house

Hanukkah was just here! We celebrated 8 days of the festival of lights in our home!

Some of you may wonder….why are they celebrating Hanukkah?

Well, let me tell you. Growing up my husband and I each celebrated all the traditional holidays and we have very fond memories of them.

As children we loved this time of year and relished in all the decorations, presents, and good cheer. (Not to mention that my birthday is Dec. 24th!) So, this time came with a lot of great memories!

When the rooster and I got married we continued in our childhood traditions for about 8 years. With the addition of our 2 young roosters we began some of our own traditions within the framework of those holidays.

About 6 years into it we became disenchanted with all the commercialism centered around certain holidays, but didn’t quite now what to do about it.

Within that 6 year period we also began to research the Hebraic Roots of our faith. It was during this time that we saw the richness in God’s Biblical holidays and began to honor them in our home. Our experience with God’s holidays and His calendar became so meaningful in our lives that our enchantment with the man made holidays began to lose it’s appeal.

Thus we began to make memories with God’s Biblical Holidays and they became our focus each season.

Don’t get me wrong…I loved the holidays I grew up with, but I could no longer enjoy them when they were put into the light of the Biblical holidays…..(and after looking into the origins of them)….that is a whole other post.

It took a few years to get into the swing of God’s holidays….but it has now been over 15 years and we have made some wonderful memories.

This Hanukkah we read from the Book of the Maccabees, The Biblical Holiday book and walked through the Messianic significance in this holiday. We talked about letting our light shine before men that they may see our good deeds and praise our Father in heaven. (Matt 5:16) We sang praises to our Lord, played driedel, ate way too much chocolate, shared wonderful stories of how God had used us during the week to be a light, and drew ever closer to the Light of the world.

We let each child from the oldest still with us to the youngest light the candles each night. We each said a prayer for one another as we lit the candles. And one night we spent a good 20 minutes praying over each other…kids and all!