What Hanukah is not about

[magid]

Having a Hannuka bush (shrub?).

Decorating the exterior of your house.

Giving gifts of KJI (kitschy Jewish items) (OK, it's a stretch; I suppose someone out there might want something they offer. Not likely anyone I know well, though :-)


I will stick with my (indoor) menorah lighting, singing one of the few decent Hanuka songs ("I Had a Little Dreidel" does not fall in this category), eating chocolate coins and foods involving olive oil. I may play a game of dreidel, but it's really not very interesting. Really, that's what we need, a better game for the holiday.

Comments

Better-Game Ideas

[fj.livejournal.com]

Strip-dreidl?

Re: Better-Game Ideas

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Dammit, you beat me to it!

Could you turn dreidel into a drinking game?

Re: Better-Game Ideas

[magid.livejournal.com]

But that just avoids the basic problem.

Re: Better-Game Ideas

[bitty.livejournal.com]

wouldn't this (http://www.boardgames.com/setofcan.html) fit in somewhere?

Re: Better-Game Ideas

[magid.livejournal.com]

Wrong period. Much too early. *snerk*

(O. M. G. That exists. Oy!)

Re: Better-Game Ideas

[bitty.livejournal.com]

yeah, and jesus was born on the 25th of december, exactly.

what's some time-manipulation when it comes to holiday games?

OMG - REINDEER GAMES. reindeer of cataan!

Re: Better-Game Ideas

[magid.livejournal.com]

Point of information: reindeer games are not what Hannuka is about.
:-)

So, would there be a new hex that would be reindeer meat, or would there be reindeer tokens that can fly over Catan, or what?

Re: Better-Game Ideas

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Maybe you need to combine the stripping aspect with the drinking aspect :) Replace the letters with subtley pornographic drawings, perhaps?

Re: Better-Game Ideas

[curly-chick.livejournal.com]

I definitely would vote for strip dreidel. Primarily because I get chuckles at thinking what nine years of hebrew school teachers would say to that.

Re: Better-Game Ideas

[curly-chick.livejournal.com]

I have done that!!! And the problem is as everyone gets more intoxicated you forget what the damn letters stand for!

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

Please inform me further as to decent Hanukkah songs. I had to sing "Oh Hannukkah" recently and it made my brain hurt.

[bitty.livejournal.com]

perhaps this (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/a/adam-sandler/3925.html)?

Hanukka songs

[magid.livejournal.com]

Maoz Tzur (Rock of Ages) (translation with editorial notes) (historical notes)

Mi Ye'malel (Who Can Retell?)

And apparently there's a new CD of Hanukkah songs* written by Woody Guthrie, performed by the Klezmatics. I haven't heard any of it yet, but I assume they're of higher quality than "Oh Hannukah"....
*links to front page, due to how the site works.

And as Bitty pointed out, the Adam Sandler song... which isn't quite singable for the rest of us.

Re: Hanukka songs

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

Someone at work brought up the Adam Sandler song, too!

Duly Noted

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

You don't want Hannuka cookie cutters....

Re: Duly Noted

[magid.livejournal.com]

Well, they could join the other Hannuka cookie cutters I don't use...
;-)

I'm a lazy enough baker that I don't remember the last time I made specially-shaped cookies. In fact, I rarely make cookies at all, since bars/brownies are so much less work intensive...

Re: Duly Noted

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

I find this really amusing, considering how much I respect and envy your cooking dedication and skills!

Re: Duly Noted

[magid.livejournal.com]

Heh. You're not the first to say that, but I still keep thinking of myself as a lazy cook. Not that I don't take time over some things, but if I find any ways to make it simpler, I take it. And I don't make most finicky sorts of foods, either. Or I find the ones with more payback (roasted salmon with peach-mango chutney is easy if you have the chutney, and while making and canning the chutney takes time, it makes a lot of pints for later use). Or something.

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

I find it amusing, in a black sort of way, that the page with suggestions on trimming a Chanukah bush includes a link labeled "Teaching Children the Meaning of Chanukah".

[magid.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I saw other pages about holiday shrubs that were earnest attempts at dealing with interfaith couples forming new traditions together. It's not where I am, but I respect that they're trying. I'd like to see other ways that kept tradition intact rather than blending, but there you are. The tree-envy shrub, on the other hand, is just sad.

[curly-chick.livejournal.com]

I have really strong feelings anti the hanukkah bush. I understand it, but I really think it doesn't work for me. I can appreciate the beauty of other people's trees (and love going to other people's homes to see them) but not for me.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Definitely. I always liked getting glimpses of fancy decorated trees in people's houses, but I didn't want that to be *my* house.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

If you ask me: The "true meaning of Chanukah" is... militant anti-assimilationism. We're here, we're soldiers of HaShem, we're gonna get Maccabean on your degenerate Hellenist asses. (Which is why it's so painfully ironic that Chanukah has itself degenerated into "the Jewish Xmas". But anyway.)

So, surely there's something in there that could revitalize Chanukah celebrations. ;-) Or at least the song selection.

Getting Maccabean

[magid.livejournal.com]

Somewhere in the last week or so someone told me a story about a friend who'd been asked to send in a token Jewish reading for a "holiday" gathering at school (grade school level). Person chose something appropriate about the Maccabees, and was told it didn't exemplify the "spirit of the holiday"!

I think a couple of nice warlike drum pieces could work out well. Or maybe something with a lot of horns leading a charge. Hm.

Yes to the irony. And I just love the idea of getting Maccabean.
But can I put those kinds of beans in chili?