A time to celebrate rededication...to anticipate...A time to celebrate rededication...to anticipate...

This week the boys have been learning about the holidays celebrated by people of other cultures. Then, while wrapping gifts at the Mall with our PTO, I met Candi. She is Jewish and was very excited to share with me how the Dreidel game works. We had been playing according to Spencer's rules and it seemed to me that, no matter how the Dreidel landed, I lost pennies. So, some of my competitive nature had kicked in and I was ready to learn how to play this game correctly - giving me a shot at victory!

Candi shared with me some of the history, some of her story and what I caught, beyond the facts, was her excitement. So, this morning while Sam and Gene are at Living Hope Church in Verona where Gene is leading worship, Spencer and I are preparing an advent worship time for our family - working in some of the Hanukkah tradition. We don't have a menorah so we will improvise using our Christmas candle and the Advent wreath we made. We also will be playing the Dreidel game - which Spencer is preparing as I write.

The dreidel (a four-sided spinning top) has four sides, each engraved with a different Hebrew letter , forming an acronym for the the Hebrew words, נס גדול היה שם, Nes Gadol Haya Sham—"A great miracle happened there".

So since we are living a life that hopes for the miraculous - counting on it actually, I am ready to celebrate the miracles of God that shout down through history..."I AM!"

The holiday was called Hanukkah meaning "dedication" because it marks the re-dedication of the Temple after its desecration under Antiochus IV. Spiritually, Hanukkah commemorates the Miracle of the Oil. According to the Talmud, at the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem following the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Empire, there was only enough consecrated olive oil to fuel the eternal flame in the Temple for one day. Miraculously, the oil burned for eight days - which was the length of time it took to press, prepare and consecrate new oil. Wikipedia

UPDATE: In the time it took me clean up after our dreidel game and communion (he broke up crackers for communion and then what was left was used for the game of miracle celebration)...spencer posted an entry on spencerlanium.com and made a menorrah, so we do have a menorrah now...