HAPPY CHAUNNYAAA?

Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this occasion.

Hannanuk is an 8 day holiday and It's safe to say that even 8 days of celebrating I still couldn't figure out how to actually spell it.

So why Hanukkah? A lot of my friends were pretty curious. As Christians, we already know the true meaning of Christmas so why celebrate and take part in a religious tradition that is the Jewish alternative for celebrating the messiah?

Honestly, I don't have a deep theological reason. I just kind of wanted too (and the fried potatoes part didn't hurt) and we decided to order a 12 dollar menorah off amazon and go for it. And even though the inexpensive menorah turned out to be kind of a dud and an extreme fire hazard, our house made it through the eight days without burning down via menorah malfunction and our hearts were actually INCREDIBLY blessed from the celebration process.

The first night of Hanukkah (which happened to be Christmas Eve, so it was especially festive) I decided we would do this the right way. We spent a good while looking up prayers and blessings and seeing how the Jewish actually do it. Granted the fact that our google searches fell a little short in the authentic practice department, we did learn more about it and how to go about the ritual in a somewhat veritable manor.

We loved celebrating Hanukkah, and here's why. We get it, we're a busy 21st century family just like the rest of you. But each night of Hanukkah, no matter if it was 6pm or 11, we all gathered around the menorah for a couple of minutes, read some bible verses and prayed.

And it was short too! 10 minutes each night, tops. But it was really calming, grounding and a sweet time. Honestly, lighting the candles and attempting to celebrate Hanukkah was one of my favorite parts of 2016.

So yes, we celebrated Christmas. We rejoiced in the joy of our King and Savior coming to earth. But we also celebrated Hanukkah, which honors the fact that our Lord is one who sustains us and carries us through hard times. The nightly lighting of the candles gave us a time to reflect on God's goodness in our life- from that particular day of Hanukkah day and how He had blessed us throughout a really hard year.

Moral of the story: If you're a Jew or a Gentile, Hanukkah is good thing.
Alternante moral: I've used spellcheck this whole post.
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