Some Chanukah Photos to Share
The last day of Chanukah was this past Shabbat. I have a lot of trouble transitioning from a chag* to a regular week; I never want to let go of the holiday: it is my connection with ha-olam ha-ruchani*, and I keep wanting to hang on. . .so it was just today that I uploaded my Chanukah pictures and am posting some of them here (and will share them on Me-ander, too).
This year, unlike last year, I took plenty of pics, as we had a full chag (Baruch Hashem), including a friend's annual open-house, a Chabad family dinner and a party of our own on the 6th night, complete with home-made latkes, or levivot* in Hebrew (a joint venture) and home-made sufganiyot* (the Head Chef did it all by himself). It all culminated with a shared family-and-friends-Shabbat-dinner on the last night of Chanukah, at our home. Here are some of the highlights:
The two photos above are of our card table which annually morphs into a chanukiya table.
Our dining room table transformed into a Chanukah Party Table, presto, chango!
Just before lighting Shabbat candles (you can see the chanukiyot lit in the background) I snapped a pic of our Shabbat table set for our last-night Shabbat-Chanukah get-together, with one of my pull-apart challahs on the challah board.
. . .And, acharon, acharon chaviv*--for a special Chanukah treat, here is a video showing just a portion of our friends' children's "Chanukah Choir" (-because I didn't think of videotaping it until towards the end-silly me) which they created for our party, singing Hanerot Halalu*, Chabad style (kids, you are now famous!)
So how to exit gracefully from Chanukah? Why, look forward to our next upcoming holiday, Tu b'Shvat*!
But I've got one even better--our older son, Mister Arnold Mayergi and his lovely wife Hardally are (b'ezrat Hashem) actually coming to visit for the holiday of. . . Pesach*!! And guess what they're gonna get a couple of days before that holiday begins? You got it--leftover spinach latkes that we are freezing, because we made so many. Now, that's the way to hang on to a holiday, eh?!
*chag: holiday (Hebrew)
*ha-olam ha-ruchani: the spiritual world
*latkes: potato pancakes (Yiddish)
*levivot: potato pancakes (Hebrew)
*sufganiyot: jelly doughnuts, very popular in Israel during Chanukah
*acharon, acharon haviv: Hebrew for "last but not least." Literally means, "(the) last, (the) last (is most) loved."
*Hanerot Halalu: a prayer we say right after lighting the candles, explaining why we light them and thanking G-d for his miracles.
*Tu b'Shvat: the 15th of the Hebrew month of Shvat, commemorating the flowering of the trees, a harbinger for spring.
*Pesach: the holiday of Passover
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