Chanukah is coming up fast. What are you doing to make it special?

[NJMOMOF2]

 As Reform Jews, what are you doing to make this time special for your family? Do you have any family rituals? One of mine is to give my children money, half of which they must give as Tzedakah, chosing the charity and letting me know the reason for it. It helps me to see their thought process and whta they feel in the moment.  Also helps them see that this is NOT about gifts but about more, Tikkun Olam. We also adopt a family and help make their holiday special.(does not matter what their religion is) Celebrating at Synagogue with our community is also important to us.It gives us the bigger connection to the Jewish World.

[tzelvy]

I love your charity idea, I may have to do something like that as mine get older. We don't go all out with the gifts stuff either. I imagine we'll do a few things with a synagogue nearby in KC that we've been thinking about joining.  A few traditions we've started are having one night of reading Hanukkah books and making a craft, another night of making sugar Hanukkah cookies, and of course one night of gifts. The big item this year is a gorgeous wooden kitchen I bought from my friend who's little boy outgrew. My boys are 1 1/2 and 3 1/2 so it'll be great.

[MrsDavid]

Ah, Hanukkah!  Yeah!

I make latkes and sufiganyot (sp).  We play dreydle.  We light all of our menorahs.  One night we go to MIL's synagogue and they have a huge menorah lighting.  Everyone brings their menorahs.  Last year there were nearly 200.

We read and eat and laugh.

We do have gifts each night, but they are silly things.  Sometimes the kids get one big gift to share or we get a family gift.