#Christmas vs #Yuletide
Many (most?) people who celebrate the third week of December with masses of food & presents are in fact celebrating Yuletide or #Chanukah rather than the birth of Christ.
Does anyone else think it is time to hive off Yuletide? - for one thing, the celebration of Christmas rightly begins on Christmas Eve after a month of fasting during Advent, and only ends on February 2nd with #Candlemas. (Or, if you prefer, #Groundhog Day)
I almost always do a Hanukkah set, and it got away from me this year. Tough year that won't take its foot off of the bulldozer's accelerator, alas. But I needs me Hanukkah set, so, belatedly, here she be... (Screw off, Grammarly.)
I recently did some plein air sketching at Tucson Botanical Gardens & this cactus menorah was my favorite holiday decoration I saw there! I loved their use of yellow & red grafted cacti for the candle flames!
Happy 8th and final night of #Catnukah! Hope you had a joyous time filled light and treats for cats and humans alike.
Tonight all the cats ran over as I started to prepare the candles. Auggie has decided that he must help the kitty gogurt go faster by chewing through it. (No his plan does not work.)
Shady was unsure about the switch to name brand Churros.
Eva much enjoyed the catnip toys.
Tomorrow night they are sure to be disappointed. Maybe I'll give them some treats with the Shabbat candles. Wonder if they will start expecting treats on Shabbat if I do:cat_play:
Happy sixth night of #Chanukah 🕎✡️ Running out of candles because of some sketchy candle packaging we got -- hopefully not too late to pick up some more. Fun fact: More than half the candles are for nights 6, 7, and 8.
A bit of red paint. Such bravery from some racist twat who is doubtless now giggling with his mates about how he has single-handedly shown the #Jews what’s what. Well done mate. In other news, #Chanukah continues to happen. #antisemitism#racism#edinburgh
What is going on with Second Gentleman Emhoff’s Chanukah message? Have I been transported to another dimension where even less makes sense? I thought it was a parody account but apparently not. It is bizarre and needless to say hugely inaccurate.
From Twitter:
“The story of Hanukkah and the story of the Jewish people has always been one of hope and resilience. In the Hanukkah story, the Jewish people were forced into hiding. No one thought they would survive or that the few drops of oil they had would last.
But they survived and the oil kept burning.
During those eight days in hiding, they recited their prayers and continued their traditions. That’s why Hanukkah means dedication. It was during those dark nights that the Maccabees dedicated themselves to maintaining hope and faith in the oil, each other, and their Judaism.
So a little story time about how Catnukah started in our family. During the height of the pandemic I need a little Jewish joy, so my wife and I decided to get each other gifts for each night of Chanukah. The next year, on a lark we decided to include the kitties too. Each night, we'd give them each some treats and a new toy. They started to gather as we lit the candles.
One night, we misplaced the rest of their gifts. They still got treats, but they seemed genuinely disappointed to not get anything that night. So off we went to buy more cheap kitty toys. Only downside was they did not understand why Chanukah ended.
This year, we prioritized their gifts over human gifts. It's delightful to share holiday joy with our kitty family.
NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli took the opportunity to bring a beloved Hanukkah game to new heights last week when she shared a video of a dreidel spinning in zero gravity aboard the International Space Station. In place of lighting a real menorah, which cannot be done aboard the space station, Moghebli marked the holiday by sticking a felt cutout of a menorah onto a window in the Space Station and “lighting” it each night with stick-on flames. Moghebli shared the video of the zero-gravity dreidel spinning in front of the felt menorah on X, formerly Twitter, with the caption: “Happy Hanukkah from the @Space_Station!! Real candles not allowed! The video shows the dreidel spinning at a consistent pace in midair for close to a minute before it eventually bumps into the camera and slows down, tilting onto its side. Moghbeli is a flight engineer and mission commander for SpaceX’s Crew-7 which departed for the Space Station in August of this year. During a press conference in July, she said that her family had made the felt menorah for her so that she could be included in their Hanukkah celebrations from afar. https://www.timesofisrael.com/astronaut-celebrates-hanukkah-with-zero-gravity-dreidel-spin/
Fourth night. It isn’t actually our family tradition to light more than one chanukiyah. But lighting candles is fun so we went for it. #Chanukah#Mazeldon#Hanukkah#Jewish