18 Interesting Hanukkah Facts About Celebrating the Festival of Lights
Everything on its origins, food, games and more.
Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, typically falls on the calendar near other major fall and winter holidays for Americans. But what is the holiday really all about?
Even casual observers might recognize the major traditions, such as lighting the menorah, making traditional Hanukkah foods like potato latkes and sufganiyot (jelly donuts), and spinning the dreidel to win. But there’s much more to the Hanukkah story, which commemorates a military victory — and an associated miracle — and goes back thousands of years.
Read on for more Hanukkah facts ahead of this year’s celebration, which kicks off the evening of December 25, 2024 and ends on the evening of January 2, 2025.
What is Hanukkah?
Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem during the second century B.C., according to History.com. Legend says that when a leader outlawed Judaism back then, a group of followers revolted. It became known as the Maccabean Revolt.
About the holiday's name...
The holiday derives its name from the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. In Hebrew, Hanukkah means "dedication."
The Jewish rebels won the revolt, but then they faced another challenge.
They needed to burn a candelabra for eight days in order to rededicate their temple. According to NPR, they only had enough oil to burn the candle for one night. But miraculously, the oil lasted long enough for them to reclaim the temple.
And that's why Hanukkah is an eight-day celebration of the "miracle of the oil."
On each night of the holiday, one additional candle (starting from the right side) is lit from the center "shamash" candle, according to Chabad. In total, 44 candles are lit throughout Hanukkah, and most Hanukkah candle packages come with enough to last the whole holiday long.
Menorahs come in all kinds of sizes and styles.
Menorahs can be large, small, DIY, fancy, plain — there are few rules! Many use candles, but others may light up by way of lamp oil or light bulbs.
RELATED: Modern Menorahs to Add Style to Your Hanukkah Decor
Technically, the Hanukkah menorah is called a hanukkiah.
The nine-branched menorah used for Hanukkah is actually called a hanukkiah. Menorahs, more generally, are simply candelabras used in Jewish worship. A traditional menorah, like the one used in the ancient Temple, has only seven branches. (So, a hanukkiah is a menorah... but a menorah is not necessarily a hanukkiah!)
Hanukkah doesn't always fall on the same day.
Because the Hebrew calendar is lunisolar, Hanukkah isn't on the same date every year. The celebration always begins on the 25th of Kislev, meaning it typically falls in November or December of the Gregorian calendar.
In 2024, Hanukkah starts late on the Gregorian calendar.
It's not uncommon for Hanukkah to overlap with other holiday celebrations. It's fallen early enough to overlap Thanksgiving. In 2024, it starts especially late: It begins on the evening of December 25 (yes, also Christmas) and ends on January 2, 2025.
But Hanukkah is not "the Jewish Christmas."
Because of the time of year during which Hanukkah falls — and the marketing hype around gifts and decor — it's tempting to think of it as sort of like the Jewish equivalent of Christmas. But it's really not: In fact, it's a relatively more minor holiday on the Jewish calendar compared with the high holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
There's traditionally no gift-giving on Hanukkah.
Instead, children often receive gelt (a.k.a. money) from the adults, as Live Science says. Chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil, used in the traditional Jewish game of dreidel, are called gelt. Some families now choose to give gifts to family; that's a relatively modern concept.
RELATED: Meaningful Hanukkah Gifts Perfect for the Kids and Adults in Your Life
Children win gelt by spinning dreidels.
Dreidels are four-sided spinning tops with a Hebrew letter printed on each side representing the phrase "A Great Miracle Happened There," My Jewish Learning says. Each player spins the dreidel — then depending on the letter it falls on, they either win or lose a specified amount of gelt.
Blue and white are the traditional colors of Hanukkah.
Blue and white are the colors traditionally associated with Hanukkah decor and celebrations. That's because these are the colors found in the Israeli flag and are generally associated with Jewish identity and pride.
Traditional Hanukkah foods, like latkes, are fried.
That's because the holiday celebrates oil. The most popular dish of the holiday is latkes (fried potato pancakes), according to My Jewish Learning. Flavors can range from sweet to salty, and they're often served with applesauce or sour cream.
The holiday's traditional dessert is the jelly donut.
One of the most popular dishes is a homemade donut. These fried donuts, called sufganiyot, are traditionally filled with jelly, though some creative recipes add chocolate or caramel.
Get the Sufganiyot (Jelly Donuts) recipe.
Chanukah and Hanukkah are technically both correct spellings.
The latter is the most popular variation nowadays. According to Dictionary.com, there are multiple acceptable ways of spelling it because it's a transliteration, which refers to translation from a language that uses different characters or symbols into another language. The name of the Jewish holiday comes from Hebrew, so the spelling doesn’t have an exact equivalent in English.
The Torah doesn't mention Hanukkah at all.
The Maccabean Revolt occurred after the Torah was written, so neither Hanukkah nor the events that led to it are in the sacred book, according to History.com. Other Jewish holidays like Passover and Rosh Hashanah hold more significance.
An astronaut once celebrated Hanukkah in space.
In 1993, Jeff Hoffman brought a travel-size menorah and spun a dreidel while on the Space Shuttle Endeavour to restore the Hubble Space Telescope. His mini Hanukkah celebration was broadcast over satellite for people back on Earth to see.
The National Menorah is lit every year in Washington D.C.
It's also 30 feet tall and it takes a cherry picker to get to the top!
Amina is a product review writer and editor who worked as an editorial assistant in the Good Housekeeping Institute from 2018 to 2020, writing original content based on GH Lab experts' product testing and analysis. Amina graduated from Montclair State University with a B.A. in communication studies and journalism.
Katarina Avendaño (she/her) is the senior SEO editor for Good Housekeeping, where she writes and edits lifestyle content and contributes to SEO strategy. Before joining GH in 2021, she was the digital editor at New York Family, where she was responsible for the website’s content and strategy. Katarina received her bachelor's degree in communications and Spanish from the University of Washington.
Alesandra is a digital travel and lifestyle journalist based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in Good Housekeeping, Woman’s Day, Prevention, Insider, Glamour, Shondaland, AFAR, Parents, TODAY, and countless other online and print outlets. Alesandra has a masters degree in journalism with an emphasis on cultural reporting and criticism from NYU, and a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley. An avid traveler, she trots the globe with her husband and their twins.
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