Chrismukkah - The seventh door

You never stop learning.
I have never seen the TV show The O.C. and had therefore  never heard about Chrismukkah if any of you should wonder.
The first time I actually stumbled upon this word was on a site not TV-related, that of the Jewish Museum Berlin which had a temporary exhibition on the theme from October 2005 to Januar 2006 called "Weihnukka - Geschichten von Weihnachten und Chanukka".
As there still seems to be interest in the topic, they put up a page with the key content which is also available under the English name "Chrismukkah - Stories of Christmas and Hanukkah".
Obviously the concept of combining both holidays - and giving this a name - had been created by assimilated German Jews in the 19th century. Via another article on Hey Alma, I got to a blog post by Jim Wald in The Times of Israel which touches on the question of assimilation and the consequences for the Jewish community in Germany.
As you can imagine, the idea of "Weihnukka" disappeared when the Nazis took over.
And then it was re-introduced it thanks to a TV show? No. I found at least one article about it before the show even started.
Do you have a story to contribute, maybe from experiences of your own?

There you have it. I promised you a crafty advent calendar and sneak in another story, but I had warned you this could happen.
Let's get to the creative part now.
Today's piece had been in the planning and making long before I jumped into the rabbit hole of Chrismukkah. For months, the title of my draft read "Hanukkah!!! - The seventh door (Star of David???)". A Star of David seemed achievable, but my own ideas were boring, YouTube didn't give me anything I liked, and most Google results didn't convince me, either. I kept putting this one off until after my first folded peyote pieces. Then I remembered a tutorial by KrisDesignFSP on Etsy from my first search.
I didn't follow the tutorial exactly. As you can see, I used two different colors for the both sides, but no different "edge" color, and I made the star smaller, both in width as in length, because I wanted to give this to a friend, as a pendant, should she want that, or for use as an ornament. It was also important for me to ask her if she thought this was okay to show here.
The blog post mentioned above also provides links to articles on other Chrismukkah related things, such as the Hanukkah bush, by the way. That I had also never heard of. I doubt my friend has a Hanukkah bush, though.

Of course my first attempt was too small. I couldn't twist the peyote, combine the triangle, AND zip it up.
My second attempt was slightly bigger, but while the zipping up was not a problem anymore, stitching the triangles together wasn't so easy. You may notice that the star is not completely regular, but my friend is a very sweet lady and likes it as it is, phew! I don't think I could have done a third one ... although it was close as der Dekan actually opened up the cardboard box to steal the star. I caught him just in time, the furry little thief! ;-)

My first try didn't go to waste, by the way. I turned it into a pair of earrings.

And now happy Hanukkah, my friends!

Happy Hanukkah - The eighteenth door

Today we step out from the usual Christmas topics in this advent calender.
I'd like to wish my Jewish friends a very Happy Hanukkah!

I did this here once before when I got the chance to, and in that post you will find a little information on Hanukkah, a little because that's what a friend told me back then (a special hug to you, Sharon!).

I know it is Sunday, but for the life of me, I don't know a Hanukkah movie with a quote that I could use. In fact, there's no Hanukkah movie in my DVD collection. Please forgive me.

Now why don't you read up on the menorah, dreidels, and gelt, and if there's anyone out there making latkes, I would love to have some!! :-D

Holiday scents - The tenth door

The other day my sister and I talked about scented candles. I never have any candles burning in the house because of the cats, much less scented ones. I have hardly ever worn perfume. I don't use air fresheners.
Of course that doesn't mean, however, that I don't notice scents or smells.
"Fragrance is deeply personal, you don't have a choice between which scents you like and which you don't. Throughout our lives we store information on smells, creating a complex stockpile of memories and associations, all of which have a big impact on whether we like a fragrance or not." (from Belfast Telegraph)

I love the smell of fried onions.
I loved the smell of, I don't know, the tracks in the underground station after a heavy rain, but only on the way home. Probably it came from some kind of chemicals, so it may be a good thing that it has gone since, but those few seconds when I came down the stairs always triggered something in me.
I love the sweet scent of the roses in front of our house and crushed mint.
I don't like the smell of peach flavored things.
I hate the smell of wild garlic. When I still drove to work with the ex, there was an area where there must have been so much wild garlic that the smell clawed its way through the car windows after rain. I had to hold my breath because it made me sick.
Well, and sometimes I wish Ponder would flush after being in the litter box.

Then I started out on a trip into the internet to find out more about holiday scents. I should have taken something to eat on that trip because it looked like it would take a while and I quickly knew I would end up in total confusion, so I had to limit myself. If you want to enlighten me with your own personal experiences, please do, I'd love to hear it!

Let's begin with Diwali because this festival already took place in early November. On his site Hindu Inside Hariram says that Diwali smells like the gunpowder of the fireworks and the eatables.  Mads Creations tells me Diwali fragrances for your home should be soothing and welcoming for visitors, floral and religious, and not sweet, spicy or fruity "as Diwali already includes lots of delicacies and delights to be shared that are already filled with sweeteners, spices and fruits". I'll be honest, that doesn't help me that much without any personal experience.

Hanukkah is ending tonight. Given the fact that I don't know much about Hanukkah except what I googled and the snippets I have been told by friends all I could think of were latkes and candles.
Obviously I was so wrong. Hanukkah smells like fear of relatives. Wait! I'm not making fun of it. This is a quote from the first article that I found on the matter, on Tablet, it's about perfumes for Hanukkah. It also quotes another article on Jewcy that I had found about scented candles for the festival, and that leads me to the last one from Alma which actually mentioned a candle that is supposed to smell like latkes and jelly donuts. I can't even imagine that one even if I try. Potato and fruit? Frying oil?
I turned to a dear friend to ask her what Hanukkah smells like for her. She said her first thought was olive oil as it's not only significant for the holiday, but also stands for latkes (I got something right!) and spinach with pine nuts in their house. She also added that sounds had been a big part of it when her kids were little, like screaming "Happy Hanukkah" three times while holding hands and jumping up and down as a circle and then falling on the floor after the candles were lit. Another memory she shared was that she hid the presents when she was growing up and put rhyming clues around the house, so there were happy screams when the kids found something. Thank you, Sharon!

Christmas. Now I can finally speak from own experience. What are Christmas scents to me?
Pine needles, spices like cinnamon or cloves, vanilla, turkey (even if don't eat it myself), oranges, snow (even if I don't like it ;-)) ... huh, now I almost want a scented candle. Maybe I'll just stick my nose into the little tin with Christmas cookies I got from the neighbors for St. Nicholas Day!

 

Happy Hanukkah - The sixteenth door

Today we are going to take a day off from Christmas. Instead I want to wish my Jewish friends a Happy Hanukkah.

Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, starts on the Hebrew calendar date of 25 Kislev and lasts for eight days. This year that is the sunset 16th of December until nightfall 24 of December.
It commemorates the rebellion of the Maccabees against the empire of Antiochus IV. When the Maccabees reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem from their oppressors, a miracle occurred. Although the fighters found only enough oil to light the lantern in the temple for one day, the oil lasted for eight days.

There are five traditions on Hanukkah.
There is the lighting of the menorah, a candelabra with nine candles. On the first day one candle is lit, two on the second day and so on. One of the nine candles, the shamash, is set higher or lower than the others and is used to light the other candles.
Hanukkah has its own special songs to be sung with the family.
Traditional food during the festival is oily honoring the miracle in the temple, like latkes (potato pancakes) and  sufganyot (round jelly doughnuts).
It is customary to play with dreidels or spinning tops. Each side of the dreidel is imprinted with a Hebrew letter.
There is also the custom of giving Hanukkah gelt which is either real or chocolate coins.


I don't want you to get this wrong, I don't know much about Hanukkah and had to do some research, then again I didn't know much about other topics in this advent calendar, either. If I wrote something incorrect, please forgive me and let me know. I am also aware that this post just scratches the surface.