Presents vs. Mitzvot (Good Deeds)

Bringing Meaning to Your Hanukkah Celebration

By Cara J. Stevens

Some time around Thanksgiving weekend (though it seems to get earlier each year) it begins: Store windows are decked out, the media spouts messages of good will and cheer, and it seems as though every speaker in town is blaring holiday songs. It's Christmastime, and while for many that means one of the biggest religious celebrations of the year, non-Christians often find themselves lost in a season where they don't quite know where they fit in.

The winter months, characterized by short days and long, cold nights, seem to be begging for a big celebration to give us all something to look forward to, but for the children who don't celebrate Christmas it can be like going to a party where it's everyone's birthday but their own. Enter Hanukkah, a minor holiday not even mentioned in the Bible and not celebrated with any special religious attention.

So how can Jewish families make their holidays just as meaningful without falling into the typical Christmas trap of lots of gifts and excess?

First, you should understand the story of Hanukkah. Judah Maccabee and his brothers led a successful revolution against their king who had forbidden the practice of Judaism and who had tried to force all his subjects to practice the Hellenic form of paganism.

"Although Hanukkah is celebrated in commemoration of one of the great victories in Jewish history, surprisingly little fuss was made over it until recent times," says Alfred J. Kolatch in his book The Jewish Book of Why (Penguin, 2003). "In recent years, to counteract the strong influence of the Christmas season and its festivities on the lives of Jewish children, who might otherwise feel 'left out,' Jewish parents have begun to celebrate Hanukkah in a more elaborate way."

While many families embrace the new American tradition of exchanging presents each year, there are many ways to bring meaning to your holiday celebration. Family gatherings are a wonderful way to get generations together to share ideas and learn from each other.

Often the exchanging of presents gets in the way of the holiday celebration. "I used to like Hanukkah celebrations as a child, but as our family has grown, we've begun to focus more on the presents and the food than on the meaning of the holiday," says Christie Smith*. "I've tried to rein things in a bit in recent years by bringing Hanukkah-related activity books or crafts that the children can do together to shift some of the focus from getting presents to their presence in the present."

"To downplay the spending, but play up the giving, we do a 'white elephant' where each family brings something they no longer use," says Lauren Isenberg Zinn, an interfaith minister in Ann Arbor. "All the wrapped items are placed anonymously in the center of the room, and we take turns picking from the pile and unwrapping the unwanted item, which can turn out to be wanted by someone else ... it is all very amusing and much fun."

A variation on this idea is to set a limit to the spending say, $5, $10 or $25 and have everyone bring a wrapped new gift. One guest at a time can open their gift, and after all gifts are open, you can go through each guest in the same order and allow people to swap for an item they would prefer. While the competition can get quite heated for these insignificant prizes, a present exchange becomes more of a group activity than an unnecessary overwhelming expense.

Want to see more?

• Holiday Headquarters
• Celebrate Hanukkah: Activities to Make, Play and Eat With Your Preschooler
• Cultural Traditions: Celebrating Christmas Around the World
• Hanukkah: A History of Tradition
• Talk about it!