It’s here again — the holiday season. A time we look forward to all year. There are Christmas trees all lit up and decorated, Menorahs with burning candles glistening in the windows, holiday music is playing in all the stores, people go frantic trying to find the right gifts for their loved ones and everyone is in the holiday spirit.

I grew up Jewish, and I celebrate Hanukkah. When I was younger, I used to be offended when someone would wish me a Merry Christmas. I thought, why can’t you just say Happy Holidays?  It’s funny — now that I celebrate Christmas with my husband, I don’t mind at all. I never thought I would ever decorate a Christmas tree or let alone have one in my home. But, I like to incorporate my husband’s traditions into our lives, so we have a tree in our home along with my menorahs and the Hanukkah decorations.

I celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas and here are some of our traditions:

Hanukkah:

When I was a kid, we celebrated Hanukkah in the traditional way. We had 8 nights of lighting candles and received one or two presents each night — some big and some small gifts. We always had potato latkes at least once during Hanukkah. It falls on a different day every year since the holiday goes by the Jewish calendar. Now that we’re all grown up, we have one big Hanukkah celebration on one night. And, since my parents live in Texas and won’t be in town for Hanukkah, we will have a “belated” Hanukkah celebration before New Year’s. We did that last year as well. We make latkes and sing to the Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack. Our favorite song is called Matchmaker. We sing and dance while we cook. We exchange presents with my family and sometimes there are so many it takes over an hour to open them all. This year, I think my husband and I are going to try and light the candles every night during Hanukkah. Hanukkah falls on December 16 — 24 this year.

Not many people who aren’t Jewish know the story of Hanukkah. It isn’t even one of the most significant Jewish Holidays. Click here for the story of Hanukkah. You will learn about the Maccabees and the miracle of the oil.

Christmas:

Every Christmas, we go over to my in-law’s house on Christmas Eve. We bring presents over and put them under the tree. We spend the night, and in the morning open all of the presents and our stockings. Then, we usually have a big breakfast (Southern Style). We spend the day together and have a big Christmas dinner with ham and all the fixings. Sometimes we eat it for a late lunch. My in-laws are not very religious and they don’t go to church. So, this is how they celebrate the holiday. It’s a great way to celebrate indeed!

Presents:

I like to get ahead of the game in regard to presents for the holidays.  I strive to get all of my presents wrapped and under the tree at least by mid December. So far, I have bought all of my Hanukkah/Christmas gifts for my family and friends except for one item.  I mainly buy for my family now and sometimes I buy things for my friends. When I was in school, I always bought presents for my friends, but as adults we don’t really want to exchange holiday presents anymore. But, we still have many gift-giving occasions, such as birthdays and weddings.

My husband and I have always given each other one big gift for Hanukkah and one big gift for Christmas. We usually make Amazon universal wish lists for each other. That way we know we are getting each other what we really want. It really has worked out well for us.

Tree and Decorations:

This past weekend we put up our tree. When we first got the tree, we lived in an apartment. We decided to get a 4-foot tree since we did not have that much room. Since it was my first tree, we wanted to incorporate Hanukkah into the tradition. So we got all blue, white and silver ornaments. Glass and plastic balls, glittery icicle ornaments, a sequined silver tree skirt and a blue glittery gold star topper. We call it the Chrismahanukkah tree. Now that we are in a house, we still use the same tree. I imagine when we get our own house; we will buy a bigger tree and more ornaments. All of the presents don’t usually fit under the tree, so we put a large majority of them on the fireplace next to the tree. I also decorate for Hanukkah and we have a lot of decorations all over the house. I’m really happy with how our house looks all decorated right now.

The Future:

One day when we have children, I’d like to incorporate both holidays (Hanukkah and Christmas) into our children’s lives. I’m not quite sure how we would do that yet. But, I would like to have the traditions we do now live on by passing them down to our children and then one day to their children.

We’re ready for this holiday season! Are you? How do you celebrate the holidays? Leave me a comment below.