Hanukkah Celebrations for Nursing Homes

Hanukkah is celebrated by the Jewish people and is observed during the Christmas season. The celebrations are separate from activities related to Christmas however. The observance of Hanukkah is one reason that people give wishes of Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas during the season.

Hanukkah includes a symbolic form of light and is commemorated over eight days and nights, usually starting about one week before Christmas Day.

Hanukkah celebrations date back to an event in 165 B.C. when the Jews were victorious over the Syrians. Hanukkah started as a way to restore and rededicate the Temple in Jerusalem that had been desecrated, including its golden menorah, by the Syrians. The festival also served the purpose of once more observing and re-instituting rituals that the Syrians had forbidden during their rule.

The primary symbol of Hanukkah, the menorah, which consists of eight individual lights, is very much a part of the mainstream. Menorahs are available today in various shapes and sizes. A single standard requirement that must be observed in making a menorah is that there should be enough separation between the flame of each of the eight lights so that they don’t give the total effect of a single large flame when all are lit.

A flame is lit each night over the days in remembrance of how a small quantity of oil from the desecrated Temple kept a menorah burning for eight days, when the amount should have only lasted for a single day. It was that miraculous occurrence that gave rise to the Hanukkah celebration to light a menorah over eight days.