HowToDoThings.com Hanukkah

How To Keep Your Pet Safe During the Holidays

bronwyn — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:51:27 -0600

Christmas and other holidays can be fun for the whole family - pets included. However, there are some common hazards that may threaten your pet's well-being. Dogs, cats, rabbits, and other pets who wander around the house could soon find that their curiosity and playfulness gets them into trouble. Before relaxing and celebrating, make sure that your home is pet-friendly.

How To Wrap Gifts the Eco-Friendly Way

triple1 — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:05:29 -0600

We celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and other special occasions by giving gifts to friends and family. Everywhere you look in stores, you see commercial gift-wrap, tamper-proof packages with multiple layers of plastic, and other packing materials that are not eco-friendly.

Is there anything you can do to lessen the impact? Yes! You can be kind to the environment while creating something unique that will merit extra appreciation from each gift recipient.

How To Give Gifts at Work

bronwyn — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:32:54 -0600

Buying gifts for coworkers can be a tricky business. When should you do it, and how much should you spend? Is it going to be awkward if a colleague buys you a Christmas present and you get him or her nothing in return? Should you buy gifts for your boss? Although each office is different, there are some tips that can apply universally.

How To Make Egg-Free Latkes

murry — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:38:55 -0600

You'll love this recipe at Hanukkah, and I recommend using it many times during the year. We even make these latkes to serve with turkey for Thanksgiving.

Where do latkes come from? And how did they enter the lexicon of American cooking? As portrayed in Fiddler on the Roof, many eastern European emigrants were driven from their shtetls or villages by pogroms (state-sponsored violence). My maternal grandmother was one of them, and she lived her new life in the U.S. in command of the kitchen of a three-family home that is now on the U.S. Register of Historic Places, near Philadelphia. Her latkes and other specialties should be on a register, too. She cooked the family recipes of her homeland in Eastern Europe.

How To Send a Holiday Gift to a Soldier

Casey47 — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:51:46 -0600

The holiday season is here and if you have a service member stationed overseas for the holidays, the time for mailing your packages has arrived. This is an extremely easy process as long as you remember to always keep the best interest of your soldier in mind. Step by step, we will go over all of the necessary tasks and items you will need for sending your package.

How To Shop Craigslist for Holiday Gifts

murry — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:46:27 -0600

Holiday gift shopping on the Internet looms larger than ever, driven by fuel prices, higher rents and our nationwide real estate bust. Can you say "savings" and "convenience"? Shop the Internet and you won't fight for parking, jostle hurried crowds, cool your heels in long checkout lines or put up with seasonal workers sporting tattoos, nose rings and “whatever” attitudes. You’ll conduct instant price surveys, compare related products and get ratings from others. This year more than ever, merchants are offering heavy discounts, free shipping and gift-wrapping to entice you to use the great online mall.

Is Craigslist one of the stores in the mall? Who would holiday shop on Craigslist, the globe’s largest garage sale and flea market? Who wants to give used items as holiday gifts? Who wants to receive them?

How To Celebrate "Buy Nothing Day"

ronkhare — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 11:14:43 -0600

Do the holidays seem overly commercialized to you? Do you find yourself wondering how buying people things is the only way to show that you love them? Are you tired of being pressured into “buy, buy, buy!” for the sake of the holidays? Does the world seem just a tad too obsessed with the material and lacking the spiritual?

If you answered "yes" to the above questions, you're not alone. The trend of massive holiday buying continues to grow: Americans will spend over $457 billion dollars for the three main winter holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa) this year. At an average of over $800 per person, holiday shopping seems to be a national--if not worldwide--obsession.

How To Find Hanukkah Songs

Beth141 — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 21:11:00 -0600

Every winter, for eight days, Hanukkah combines elements of Jewish tradition and history with facets of contemporary holiday celebrations. Gift-giving, parties with family and friends, and menorah-lighting are all connected to the "Festival Of Lights." Music, too, can play a special role in the celebration of this season. If you'd like to add Hanukkah songs to your eight-day celebration, you may wonder where you can find just the right music. There's more out there than The Dreidel Song, isn't there? Of course! Here are some ways to build your collection of Hanukkah songs.

How To Prepare Traditional Food for Hanukkah

Annette165 — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 15:44:00 -0600

Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, lasts eight days and celebrates the miraculous way a small amount of oil, enough for one night, lasted for eight until more could be found. Unlike Christmas, Thanksgiving or Passover, there isn't one major feast or dinner. It is more about children and family now than it is about food. For this reason, Hanukkah foods tend to be more snack items and sweets rather than a complete dinner.

Because of the oil that is central to the celebration, a lot of the traditional foods for Hanukkah are fried. Many of the dishes are also made with cheese, in honor of the heroic widow Judith, who lulled an Assyrian general to sleep with wine and cheese before killing him to save her people.

How To Play Dreidel

Staff468 — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 14:30:00 -0600

Playing the dreidel game is a Jewish tradition that the entire family can enjoy together during Hanukkah. If you don't already have a dreidel, visit our article about making a dreidel. Here's how to play the dreidel game.

Players divide the "gelt" (money) into even portions. You can use really any countable substance for the gelt. Common choices include candy, pennies and chocolates.
Each player takes a turn. The first thing a player does during a turn is add a specified amount of gelt into the "kupah" (equivalent to "the pot" in poker) in the center of the players.
Then that player spins the dreidel. What happens next depends upon which of the dreidel's four Hebrew letters lands face-up.

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