8 days of fried food

Tonight is the third night of Hanukah. Over the past few days I've been making Hanukah-themed papel picado, the Mexican festival paper cut-outs. I was inspired by this post I found via The Crafty Crow, and have really enjoyed snipping away as I watch TV (now with only one eye, since I am still recovering from the insect attack referred to in my last post). I put them up in our front window and they look lovely and festive.

Every night so far we've been celebrating Hanukah with - naturally - the lighting of the candles and much spinning of dreidels. Plus a couple of tiny gifts for the kids, and some chocolate coins.

Today we bought a whole bag of dreidels for K to give out at school along with instructions for how to play the dreidel game (you can find instructions here if you need them). The mini dreidels look so cute with all their different colours.

I didn't grow up in an observant family, so until recently I had no idea that it was customary to eat fried food on Hanukah. Fried food! For eight days! Now that's a tradition worth keeping. My son is a big fan of latkes, and we are all glad of an excuse to eat the sugared jam donuts (see below) that are sold in Jewish bakeries at this time of year. But why stick to the Jewish dishes? Hot chips are hard to resist, as are pancakes. Then there are all those delicious Asian foods - spring rolls, pakoras and samosas. Mmmmm...

With one Jewish and one Anglo-Australian parent our children are not short of festivals and celebrations, and at this time of year we have a bit of an overload. Five more days of Hanukah to go, plus, over the next two weeks, all the end-of-year parties (playgroup, school, kindergarten) and a couple of birthday parties. And then there's Christmas... oh boy. If you've read this far, Chag sameach! Now go get yourself some fried food.